When progress was reported last night I was outlining some of the riduculous things that my colleague, Deputy Clinton, had said about the necessary rearrangement of the County Dublin constituencies. I pointed out that even Deputy Clinton must know that the area he suggested should comprise the North County Dublin constituency would barely be sufficient to justify two seats under the existing constitutional provisions. I pointed out that even if North County Dublin were to be a three-seat constituency it would still be unavoidable that some population would have to be taken from the No. 3 electoral area. So that these delusions of persecution from which Deputy Clinton is suffering are completely without justification. Deputy Clinton is perfectly well aware that I reside in the same locality as he does and that any taking away of part of that area affects me just as it affects him. In fact, unlike Deputy Clinton who has announced that his roots are in County Meath, I have my roots in that area.
Private Business. - Electoral (Amendment) Bill, 1968: Committee Stage (Resumed).
The Minister has not been in the area for as long as I have been.
They made a seat for the Minister.
I was born in the area and I have——
The Minister was born in North-East, and not County, Dublin. Fairview is not in that area.
If Deputy Clinton knew anything about the area he would know that. However, the position is that in so far as any locality affects Deputy Clinton it affects me as well. The considerations here were that there had to be two extra seats squeezed into this small area of County Dublin. As there are no constituencies returning more than five seats, there were two ways of doing this: having one five-seat and two three-seat constituencies or, as our proposal is, having two four-seat constituencies and a three-seat constituency. Obviously this would leave Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown a four-seat constituency and North County Dublin a four-seat constituency and the area comprising the surplus population from these two areas a three-seat constituency which is the new constituency of South County Dublin. That is the area I propose to contest and in which I have no doubt whatever it will be possible to elect a second Fianna Fáil TD as well.
If Paddy Burke is going he will bring the Minister in.
We will come to the question of the unfortunate disruption of the long association between myself and Deputy Burke. This is one of the most regrettable things in this whole unwelcome operation that I have to perform. At least for a temporary period this very felicitous association between myself and Deputy Burke has to come to an end.
You were cutting one another's throats.
The Minister is getting as good as Deputy Seán Dunne.
It was not nice for a Minister to be led by Deputy Burke by 10,000 votes.
The total population of the No. 1 and No. 2 electoral areas is 57,822 which is 4,461 short of the average for three seats. Even after the Baldoyle ward from the city area had been added, and that was essential because of the distribution of population and because of the fact that there were only 38 seats available for the Dublin area, the addition of that would not be sufficient to make a three-seat area because the population that would be left would be too many for the number of seats that had to be squeezed in.
Could the Minister tell us how he got 57,822?
I got it by the process of addition.
We know that.
The Minister might be a little more civil.
I got it by the addition of the population of the No. 1 electoral area to the population of the No. 2 electoral area. If the Deputy will write down 31,412 and underneath if he will write 26,410, draw a line under that and add them, even he will get 57,822 and if he adds to that the population of the Baldoyle ward which is 2,097 he will get 59,919. 57,822 is the population of the No. 1 and No. 2 electoral areas. If he adds to that the population of the Baldoyle ward which is 2,097 he gets 59,919 and if he deducts that from the total population of the County of Dublin including the Borough of Dún Laoghaire and divides the resulting figure by the remaining number of seats which is eight, Deputy Clinton will find that the result would be over the allowable figure of population per Deputy. Therefore, it was necessary even in order to create a three-seat constituency comprising the No. 1 and No. 2 electoral areas and the Baldoyle ward to take some population from the No. 3 area.
Nonsense.
That is a fact which Deputy Clinton can work out for himself but maybe he is only able to do the addition, maybe he is not able to do the subtraction and division that are also involved in this. Therefore, some extra had to be taken and the obvious place to take it from was the Walkinstown area and since figures of population are available only on a townland basis it was decided to take all that area and make the North County Dublin area a four-seat constituency.
With regard to the suggestion by Deputy Clinton that this has been done to make a safe seat for Deputy Foley it might be no harm to remind Deputy Clinton of the result of the last general election in the area. In 1965, County Dublin was a five-seat constituency and for Deputy Clinton's information there were two Deputies elected on the first count with substantial surpluses—my distinguished and gracious colleague Deputy Burke and myself — Deputy Burke with a total of 19,076 and myself with a total of 14,022. Deputy Dunne was elected on the fourth count and on the sixth count Deputy Foley was elected, again with a substantial surplus of almost 1,000. That left the remaining seat, the fifth seat, to be allocated to Deputy Clinton without a quota.
But with nearly two quotas.
Without a quota. He had the distinction of getting the sole Fine Gael seat, the last seat, without a quota. Therefore, there is obviously no need whatever——
I am not being humiliated in the least.
——to make any special arrangements to make a seat for Deputy Foley.
Give us the first preference votes?
He is quite safe. With regard to the suggestion that the purpose of this operation is to separate me from my colleague Deputy Burke, the figures of previous elections will show quite clearly that, so far from there being any reason why I should wish to do that, there is every reason why I should wish to remain in that distinguished company.
It would be useful to remember the first time the Minister was elected. It was a good job he was in the constituency then.
Yes, the first time was in 1957 when the constituency of County Dublin was a three-seat constituency and the quota was 9,561. Here again Deputy Burke was as usual elected with a substantial surplus of 2,498 and the next Deputy on the first count was myself with 9,412, 149 short of the quota. Of course on the distribution of Deputy Burke's surplus I got ten times more than the small number of 149 that I required. It took four more counts and on the fifth count the third seat was filled by the then Deputy Rooney who is now Senator Rooney. At the next election of 1961 when County Dublin had become a five-seat constituency again my colleague Deputy Burke was elected at the head of the poll as is his wont with the substantial surplus of 1,835 votes. I was elected also on the first count with a substantial surplus of 1,622 and as is usual in County Dublin we were the only two who were elected on the first count. It took until the seventh count to elect anybody else.
I do not think those figures show any reason for me to try to get away from my colleague, Deputy Burke. In fact, as he has often said himself, we have formed a great team and our association has certainly done a great deal to ensure the continuance of good government in this country by ensuring a Fianna Fáil majority in the constituency we represented. Indeed, in the near future when I will be attending a round of social functions to mark the 25th anniversary of my colleague's election to Dáil Éireann I can assure Deputies that there will be many sincere expressions of mutual regret at the breaking up of this association.
The arrangement that has been made with regard to County Dublin is the most suitable one that could be made. The line dividing the constituency of North County Dublin from South County Dublin is taking account of the necessity to follow district electoral divisions and townland boundaries as far as possible, the line running as closely as possible east and west, and the description given to the constituency, which is the logical one for the area lying north of that line is North County Dublin and South County Dublin to the other area and the description of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is retained.
The Minister had the effrontery to come here last night and accuse us on this side of the House of wasting time. We all know that he and his Government have wasted the time of this House and of the country, as well as a considerable amount of public money, in a referendum that was unwanted by anybody except the Minister and a few other power-thirsty bullies in his own Party. However, we are speaking here this morning on the Bill. The Minister said very little on the Bill. He spent himself in his efforts to humiliate me but he has not succeeded, I can assure him.
I stood before the people in County Dublin on five occasions—three local elections and two general elections— and the people in County Dublin honoured me on each of those five occasions by electing me, which is more than the Minister for Local Government can say about the people of County Dublin. As far as he is concerned, it took him a long time to get in. That, again, is far away from the Bill. However, I shall take the Minister's own figures and I shall prove that it was not necessary to take in the No. 3 area in order to get a three-seat constituency in North County Dublin. For the area that we have known as the No. 1 area in North County Dublin, he gives a figure of 31,412 population and, if I got his figure correctly, 26,410 for the No. 2 area, making this 57,420 odd.
57,822.
We shall not quibble over a few figures one way or another.
We shall have to, unfortunately.
We still have plenty. We shall add 2,092—that was the figure for the Baldoyle ward that was added—and we arrive at 59,900 which is as good as 60,000 and, without using the tolerance, we have place for three Deputies. Who, now, cannot do addition? I take it that it is the Minister for Local Government who cannot do addition because it is obvious to me that it is made for a three-seat constituency without coming into the No. 3 area at all and using largely the well-known boundary of the Naas Road. However, the Minister came into the No. 3 area with the deliberate intention of splitting my council vote—I say it again because I know that it has been done. The Minister has not succeeded in proving that that has not been so. He spoke about my reference to the Navan Road as a natural boundary and referred to it and to the Naas Road as boundaries well known by the people and a natural boundary.
What I meant by the Navan Road was that the nearest point the people in County Dublin would recognise as North County Dublin would be the right-hand side of the Navan Road as you go towards Navan from Dublin. I think the Minister will agree that that is so. A nearer point would not be recognised by anyone as North County Dublin. Now he speaks about the impossibility of creating a three-seater on that side of the Navan Road. I see no impossibility at all. We had Sutton and Howth that were formerly in County Dublin. There is a population there of about 20,000. Furthermore, we had the position in North-East Dublin where they could easily give us 20,000 and more in order to accommodate a three-seater constituency in County Dublin. The Minister has set out deliberately to misrepresent me. He finishes up then by glorifying Deputy Foley and saying that, of course, Deputy Foley was elected before I was.
Hear, hear.
Of course he was—but the Minister made sure that he would not give us the first preference votes because, if he did——
Only the people can do that.
The Minister is trying to mislead the people.
If the Minister gave us the first preference votes the House would see where Deputy Foley came— he got the surpluses, good luck to him, and he got elected. He may have a good deal of trouble in getting elected the next time.
Not at all.
If the constituencies stood as they were, he would get no seat the next time. The Minister knew that. He set out deliberately to take that part of Baldoyle that he knew to be a Fianna Fáil stronghold and he put it into Deputy Foley's lap in order to get him elected. The Minister for Local Government is not fooling anyone when he tells this House that he was doing the best he could in all the circumstances to provide compact constituencies that were easily worked. Anybody who would describe a constituency running from beyond Balbriggan to Kimmage Manor as a compact constituency cannot be taken as speaking seriously when it was completely unnecessary to pass the Naas Road to get a three-seater constituency in North County Dublin that would serve the people and serve them well—but, then, Deputy Foley would not have been elected and the Minister knew that. That is the reason for making it a completely unnatural four-seater constituency. However, the Minister has made his decision. He tells us now that he is going to do well. He told us the same on the referendum—that he was going to do well. However, the people come in here somewhere. I know what the people will tell him in South County Dublin. If he does not get two seats in North County Dublin then certainly it will not be for the want of trying very hard in gerrymandering the area: he has done that very effectively. Not only has he done that to us but he has done it to Labour. He has made sure that he has thrown all the Labour support into North County Dublin so that they cannot possibly get a seat in South County Dublin.
We shall get a seat, all right.
I hope that that is so.
Leave us one.
You will get one, all right.
I hope Deputy Tully is right in this but I cannot see it on the figures available to me. I think that this was deliberately done in order to put so much of the Labour support into North County Dublin that it would be impossible for them to get a seat in South County Dublin. Those are some of the motives and I am sure I can think of others: I shall leave it for the moment. I have effectively proved that the Minister had a perfect three-seater constituency without coming into the area or splitting it.
I just want to express my views on this matter and to say that I am glad to see that there is a bit of a change of heart as far as Deputy Clinton is concerned. Of course, we can understand the dismay in his attitude because he himself is probably basing his own Party on the figures of his own election at the last general election. If this is correct, and it seems to be so, it is no wonder Deputy Clinton is so worried about it because if I, myself, were the last Deputy elected out of five Deputies in the county in the last election, I should be worried too. However, if I can put his mind at ease, I would say to him: "Do not be too worried about me, Deputy Clinton, or worried about Deputy Burke because we will survive, as we proved to you in the last election, when you scraped home dragging your feet just because you deprived an honest man, who is now Senator Eamonn Rooney, of his seat." We all know that Deputy Clinton utilised the man who is now Senator Rooney to gather votes for him in the last general election. However, I do not think this will happen again because Senator Rooney is now based on the North side. Deputy Clinton does not know where he is based.
I led Deputy Foley by 2,500 votes in the last election.
Did Deputy Clinton lead me in the finish? Did Deputy Clinton get the quota? Answer. How many seats did you get? You got one seat out of five.
And the last one.
And the very last one —without reaching the quota.
Are we allowed to discuss all this?
Deputy L'Estrange was not here and therefore does not know that I am answering Deputy Clinton's argument.
That is all right. It suits us. Stay quiet.
If Fianna Fáil can do it, we shall do it with every constituency in Ireland, if the Chair allows Fianna Fáil to do it.
You will do it whether you are allowed or not. Deputy Clinton mentioned bringing in the Howth portion of the North East, bringing in 20,000 votes from Sutton. If the Minister was trying to protect me, I suggest to him here and now that he might bring in Howth, Sutton and a portion of the North East.
You would be shifted then?
I have no doubt in the world about my being elected. I have a large circle of friends in that area. I have a large circle of supporters and I can muster up a considerable amount of support. I do not think the Minister was trying to protect me because he brought in a large portion of South County Dublin. Naturally, since I live on the north side I do not command a lot of support in it but my support is growing and increasing in that area and I have no doubt that, in the next election—whenever it may be—Deputy Clinton will have to eat his words once again. He has expressed dismay here on my behalf. I will express that dismay on behalf of Deputy Clinton at the next election, because I fervently feel it is his own seat he is worried about. From a Party point of view, he is not interested in whether Fine Gael get two seats, three seats or how many seats they get. His particular interest is that Deputy Clinton stays here, at the bottom of the poll, shall we say?
The particular interest of Fianna Fáil is to oust Deputy Clinton.
And why not? That is the interest of every Party. Let Deputy Clinton not think that, just because Fine Gael throw a kind, soft word towards the Labour Party, they would not take his seat tomorrow. Deputy Clinton is being misled by somebody— I do not know who it is. We shall probably take Deputy Clinton's seat.
Fianna Fáil are on the way out, and they know it, too.
Let Deputy L'Estrange stick to the turkeys.
The referendum taught Fianna Fáil a lesson.
In conclusion, if it eases Deputy Clinton's mind, I can assure him that the amount of work I have put into the constituency I represent is very substantial. He uses the national press to try to drag down any work which I have done. Because I do not go seeking publicity in the public press for every step forward I take on behalf of my constituents, Deputy Clinton and his colleagues are inclined to believe that I shall not be elected again. But the people of County Dublin are firmly convinced that I have worked hard on their behalf and I shall continue to work on their behalf. I have no doubt that when the next election comes they will satisfy critics such as Deputy Clinton and even critics in the Press by re-electing both Deputy Burke and myself and possibly even another colleague in North County Dublin.
I am very grateful to Deputy Foley for having disclosed publicly here the mind behind the introduction of this Bill by the Minister for Local Government. It proves conclusively what we said during the referendum campaign and what we have been saying in the House and outside it since the Bill was published, that it was designed and conceived solely for the purpose, as Deputy Foley has just admitted as one of those in politics who sometimes blab things out by mistake, of benefiting the Fianna Fáil Party——
On the contrary——
——and for nothing else but to do what the Minister can to destroy other Parties opposed to Fianna Fáil. That is not the way any Minister for Local Government or any Minister in any Government should approach the national duty of his office. We are grateful to Deputy Foley for having exposed the manner in which the Minister has put his Party before his national duty.
What is the purpose of this constituency that we are now discussing? The purpose of its being drawn as it has been drawn is to provide an end to what I heard the Minister for Local Government describe as a felicitous association. It was a felicitous association for Deputy Burke, I suppose, because he was always able to lead the Minister for Local Government. The constituency is drawn for the purpose of ensuring that there would be an unnatural division between North and South County Dublin. I do not know whether Deputy Foley will remember or not, but I am quite sure the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister, if not the Minister himself, will remember that somewhere about 18 years ago the all-Party Committee of the Mansion House published certain pamphlets showing in relation to the North of Ireland the exact shape in which gerrymandering had been carried out. If anybody cares to look in the Oireachtas Library he can find one of the pictures in those pamphlets which is more or less an identical copy, or an original if you like, of the manner in which the Minister for Local Government has drawn North County Dublin. The unnatural shape shown in parts of the Six Counties is reflected exactly in North County Dublin by, for example, putting in part of Kimmage across the river.
I am grateful to Deputy Foley for having disclosed to the House and the country what we knew to be behind this method of drawing the constituencies. Is it not lucky that the people here were not codded by the commission that the Minister wanted to set up because, if it had been, then, if the commission had fairly done its work the Minister, in pursuance of the intention declared by Deputy Foley, would then come along and change the work of that commission? But the people said overwhelmingly last October that they would not be misled in that way— that they knew the Minister for Local Government and his Fianna Fáil colleagues would not approach the task of defining constituencies in a national way but that they would do it in a Party way. That was the reason why in Deputy Foley's and the Minister's constituency, as well as everywhere else, the people gave such an emphatic answer a few months ago.
First of all I should like to answer a few points the Minister made. He said he was born in County Dublin. I do not think he has ever lived in County Dublin. He was born in Fairview and Fairview was never in County Dublin. I have lived 36 years in County Dublin and have been six years outside it. Admittedly, some of the area goes into Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, but I lived in County Dublin most of the time. When the Minister read out the results of the voting in the last general election, he pointed out that Deputy Clinton got the last seat. That is so, but the next person was a Fine Gael man. Fianna Fáil barely got three quotas——
Hear, hear.
——and a lot of that was because one man was a Gaelic footballer. Labour got just more than a quota and Fine Gael got just short of two quotas. Therefore, this latest effort of the Minister is another example of misleading the people, as he did before the referendum. Let us take the Minister's figures of 31,000 in the No. 1 area, 26,400 in the No. 2 and 2,092 in the other, a total of 59,900. The Minister says you cannot get more than two seats in these areas combined. You could get three seats with the tolerance, it being 57,000 without the tolerance.
As the Minister knows, the north side of Dublin is growing outwards. Plans for houses are increasing the city by between 5,000 and 8,000 people. In the areas I have mentioned, therefore, the Minister should start at the lowest possible figure of 57,000 because in the next year or two the figure will rise to 60,000 and in a few years the population will have reached 65,000. The Minister wants to ensure that Deputy Foley will be in on this. At the moment, the rumour is that Deputy P. J. Burke and Deputy Foley will stand in the north side—two Fianna Fáil Deputies with their roots in the north side. Deputy Burke would probably go south, but that would not suit the Minister because he might get the boot there, there being only three seats in it. The position at the moment is that there are two Fianna Fáil Deputies there.
However, if there are only three seats there what will happen is that one Fianna Fáil, one Fine Gael and one Labour Deputy will be returned and there will be no chance of Fianna Fáil getting two seats. So what does the Minister do? He moves right across to the far side of the city, as far as Kimmage Manor, passing the North-East, North-West and South-West and around the tip of South Central to hit Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. How often have I heard Deputies Burke and Foley and Deputy Clinton and others say that it is a tremendous distance for a Deputy to travel, particularly across a busy city, to see his constituents? It has been the Minister's argument in relation to country constituencies. It is the argument in relation to a constituency in which one has to travel 20 to 30 miles, from Balbriggan, through Swords, to the Wicklow mountains. It is far worse when a Deputy has to travel through a busy city.
The Minister has four seats in North Dublin in order to keep two Fianna Fáil Deputies. He has moved in a bit of North-East Dublin where you can easily pick out the Fianna Fáil vote, the Fine Gael and the Labour votes. In no other city area can you pick them out so easily because there are changes as the areas become built up. The Minister brings in portions of the old County Dublin where he knows the vote and, because Deputy Foley comes from the north side, he will get that, the Minister thinks. I have my doubts.
In the south side there might also have been four seats but they wanted to get rid of Deputy Seán Dunne so they move him into the city. He has gone, so the south is to have three seats. Not being from the country, there is only one main point of criticism I wish to make in relation to it and that is the butchery of Leitrim. Beyond that, I have not been worried about the country constituencies, though the Minister wanted, of course, to do the best he could for Fianna Fáil Deputies. Therefore, in country areas he proposed there would be three-seat constituencies and in Dublin, where possible, four seaters. We must consider Dublin North in which Dublin North-East becomes involved. Where there will be Labour representation, Fianna Fáil provide for four-seat constituencies but where there will not be Labour representation they keep to three-seaters. They hope to take two seats in the four-seat constituencies.
In the last general election, Fianna Fáil's percentage of the vote in Dublin was 30.6. In North County Dublin, if there were three seats the representation would be one Fine Gael, one Fianna Fáil and one Labour. In Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, a five-seater, the representation would be two, two, one. In the North County area, with a four-seater, Fianna Fáil might get two, going on the last election, Fine Gael would get one and Labour one. In the South County, it would be one, one, one; and, as I have said, in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown it would be two, two, one, making the representation in these constituencies Fianna Fáil five, and six against them.
We could take an alternative and say that with a three-seater in North County Dublin the representation would be one, one, one; in South County Dublin, with three seats, it would be one Fianna Fáil and two Fine Gael; in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, a five-seater, it would be two Fine Gael, two Fianna Fáil and one Labour or two Fianna Fáil and three Fine Gael. However, by gerrymander, Fianna Fáil can possibly get five seats out of 11 though they should get only four. That is what they tried to do in this Bill.
In Dublin, where Labour have a chance of winning a seat, they make the constituency a three-seat constituency, which would give one Labour, one Fine Gael and one Fianna Fáil. Where, however, there is a chance of Labour getting one seat and Fianna Fáil two, they make the constituency a four-seat constituency. There was the proposal in the referendum with regard to the setting up of a commission. Had Fianna Fáil won the referendum they would now have 144 constituencies with one seat each. I would be quite happy if the Minister decided to have every constituency a three-seat, a four-seat or a five-seat constituency. I would not mind that because, if one loses in the country, one gains in the city and vice versa. The whole western area is divided into three-seat constituencies but Dublin is divided into four-seaters because that is the area in which the Government hope to hold on. Now the western area is practically all Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Labour comes in only in Cork and Kerry.
I am afraid we are getting away——
I am pointing out that these four-seaters should be three-seaters. Last night, when the Minister was discussing Donegal, he also discussed Clare, Leitrim and the West of Ireland generally. I am discussing three-seat constituencies as against four-seat constituencies and I say there should not be a four-seat constituency in North County Dublin. The Minister is making it a four-seat constituency because it suits him but in the west he is making three-seat constituencies, because it suits him. That is the kernel of this whole Bill and that is the fundamental gerrymander. I think I am quite entitled to refer to this.
The question then arises of the number of votes necessary to secure so many seats. With 50 per cent of the vote, where the result is usually one/ one/one, the result will be 66? of the seats or two seats out of three. In a four-seater constituency all one needs in order to get two seats is 42 per cent of the votes. That will be the result in North County Dublin. If it were a five-seat constituency the result would be two/two/one.
The Minister asked last night if we could add and subtract in order to get the figures. He almost bordered on impertinence. I have added the figures. The electorate in North County Dublin is 59,892, when one takes in the No. 2 area. Yesterday the Minister said one had to split the No. 3 area in order to get a three-seat constituency. You have this and you have the tolerance; within 100 votes of the tolerance you can get three seats, taking the No. 2 area. The Minister said it could not be done. He contradicted Deputy Clinton's argument. On his own figures it can be done. He has admitted that. In the city of Dublin it is perfectly obvious that Fianna Fáil are fighting for their lives to hold on to seats and their object is to get two out of four. In the country areas they are hoping to get two out of three. I believe it will take only a very small swing of the pendulum to defeat their calculations. The Minister is as remote from the grass roots now as he was when he held the referendum.
Deputy Clinton tried to brazen out his suggestion that the No. 1 and No. 2 electoral areas in County Dublin, with the addition of the Baldoyle ward, would be a feasible proposition and would permit of a three-seat constituency. I do not believe Deputy Clinton is incapable of investigating the figures of population in the Dublin area more intelligently than that——
I took the Minister's figures.
——in the light of the existing interpretation of the constitutional requirement. The population of the administrative area of County Dublin, including the Borough of Dun Laoghaire, is 226,275. It is quite true that, if it were permissible to deal with this area on its own, it would be possible to have 11 seats in the area, without any addition from outside; but that would leave 27 seats for the city area and the population of the city area is 568,772. If one allocates 27 seats to that area one gets an average of population per Deputy of 21,065. That, of course, is outside the permissible tolerance in accordance with the interpretation of the constitutional requirements by Mr. Justice Budd. Even if one could arrange a division with that kind of mathematical exactitude, which one could not because it would involve not only dividing streets but dividing households, everything would be all right; but that kind of accuracy is impossible and, therefore, the city area, in order to contain only 27 seats, must lose something more than 1,000 of population. For practical reasons it would, of course, obviously have to lose some more because one cannot divide constituencies with this kind of mathematical exactitude.
The two smallest wards in the city are the Phoenix Park ward, with a population of 1,907, and the Baldoyle ward with a population of 2,097. If one starts on the basis of trying to keep the city and the county as separate as possible and, since the city must lose something over 1,000 of population in order to accommodate the 27 seats within the constitutional limits, one must obviously decide to transfer one of these two smallest wards from the city to the county. Because the Baldoyle ward was until recently in the county it was decided to take this ward, with a population of 2,097, and add that to the county. That leaves the county then with a population of 228,372, giving an average of 20,761 for 11 seats and an average of 62,283 for a three-seat constituency.
Deputy Clinton was not very accurate in his calculations, but he agreed roughly with the population figures I gave for the No. 1 and No. 2 electoral areas with the addition of the Baldoyle ward. It is true that, if one could consider that area in isolation, a three-seat constituency would be permissible, but one cannot do that because the population then in the rest of the County Dublin area would be 168,453 and there are eight seats to be allocated in that area; eight divided into 168,453 gives 21,057, which is again outside the limits permissible in the High Court interpretation of the Constitution.
That was not what the High Court decided.
Deputy Sweetman wants to change feet yet again.
It was not what the High Court decided.
It is not surprising. The whole of the Deputy's Party spent months here in the Dáil and months touring the country arguing that there should not be even that amount of tolerance allowed. Certainly the referendum campaign was based on there being a permissible tolerance of five per cent.
In voters.
Even if the High Court decision did not specify that, certainly it was on that the people voted in the referendum in October last. So, it would not be permissible to have this constituency of the No. 1 and the No. 2 electoral areas with the Baldoyle ward from Dublin city because of the situation that would be left in the remainder of the county. Deputy Clinton put forward another suggestion, obviously at the instigation of Deputy Belton.
No, it was my own. I have the figures.
He put forward the suggestion that another way of dealing with the situation in North County Dublin, would be to take in more of the city, to take in Howth, Sutton and the rest of the Baldoyle area, in order to make up the population required for North County Dublin. That is something which came to my mind. I can quite understand that Deputy Belton would be very happy——
Deputy Belton had nothing to do with it.
——to get rid of that part of his constituency.
Deputy Belton had nothing to do with it. Deputy Clinton said it. Why does the Minister twist things?
The inspiration for that suggestion came obviously from Deputy Clinton's righthand side, from Deputy Belton. Anyone who has any knowledge of the Dublin North-East constituency, as I have, can well understand why Deputy Belton——
That is so wrong and the Minister knows it.
——would like to get rid of this area. Anyone who has any knowledge of the area and of the area of influence of my colleague Deputy Foley would realise that the surest way to consolidate him would be to give him some of this area in which he is so well known and so well thought of. If that were present in my mind, this is what I would have done.
Why did the Minister not do it? He would lose his seat if he did. He knew Fine Gael were strong there.
That was something which I considered seriously. It would be a feasible solution to the whole problem. To ignore the city boundary would give more compact areas generally speaking, but I do not think it would prove very acceptable to the Opposition. If we were completely to ignore the city boundary, as has been suggested now by Deputy Clinton at the instigation of his colleague Deputy Belton, in this instance, I am quite certain that the criticism it would draw would be even greater than the present criticism. What was decided in fact was to adhere to the city boundary so far as possible. I have demonstrated that we took from the city area the absolute minimum, the second smallest ward in the area, the Baldoyle ward with a population of 2,097, and that was done only because the population of the city was too great for the 27 seats available to it. I think that is fairly obvious.
Deputy Sweetman intervened to claim that Deputy Foley's speech had exposed that this whole thing was done in the Fianna Fáil interest. In fact, he disclosed the exact opposite. He disclosed that Deputy Clinton's suggestion would have been the ideal one so far as he personally was concerned and, since Deputy Clinton has been basing his whole case on the contention that the objective was to consolidate Deputy Foley's seat, I think Deputy Foley's speech completely disposed of that argument by demonstrating that it was Deputy Clinton's suggestion which would have done that much more effectively than the actual proposal I have put before the Dáil.
I agree that if one looks at the shape of the proposed constituency of North County Dublin it seems an unnatural type of constituency. This is because of the fact, for which I am not responsible, that it is cut almost in two by the city of Dublin. I did not build the city of Dublin. The city of Dublin is there. It is not my fault.
It could still have three seats.
The only way in which it could have been made a more natural-looking type of constituency would have been to adopt the combined suggestion of Deputy Clinton and Deputy Belton and to ignore the city boundary and take in this area which would be of such great assistance to Deputy Foley. Apart from the fact that the city intrudes on the constituency, the constituency of North County Dublin is just about as natural as it is possible for a constituency to be.
All this song and dance that has been made about the Terenure district electoral division being incorporated is nonsense, because Deputy Clinton suggested that it should be only the No. 1 and No. 2 electoral areas, and part of that area is actually more southerly than the Terenure district electoral division.
Where?
In Clondalkin and Cheeverstown. Does the Deputy not even know that? There is part of the No. 2 electoral area, which Deputy Clinton admits——
A couple of dozen votes.
——should be in this constituency, more southerly than the Terenure district electoral division. In fact, that is the only place where the line between the North County constituency and the South County constituency deviates in any substantial way from a line running east and west.
Deputy Belton claimed that I said that the No. 1 and No. 2 electoral areas were sufficient only for two seats. I did not. What I did say was that in the area Deputy Clinton maintained could form North County Dublin, that is the area north of the Navan Road, the population there was barely sufficient for two seats. The average for three seats in the area of County Dublin plus the Baldoyle ward would be 62,288 and the No. 1 electoral area plus the No. 2 electoral area plus the Baldoyle ward give a total population of 59,919. That would leave 168,453 people in the remainder of County Dublin which is too many for the eight seats which must be put into it. Therefore in order to deal with the situation you must——
Would the Minister do a little sum for me?
There are some school teachers in your Party. Get some of them to do your sums if you cannot do them yourself.
Eight into 168,000 is not what the Minister says.
Eight into 168,453 gives 21,056.5. That is more than the tolerance that we have assumed, and correctly assumed, is available to us in accordance with the interpretation of the Constitution which Deputy Sweetman's Party extracted from the High Court.
I might know more about interpretations of High Court decisions than the Minister.
There must be some population taken, therefore, from the No. 3 electoral area. I can assure Deputy Clinton that I personally have as much interest in retaining as much of that as he has because, as I said, I was born in the constituency and all my roots are in that area of County Dublin just as Deputy Clinton boasts that his are in County Meath.
You cannot be in two places at the same time. Deputy Belton said that he knew you in Fairview.
The Minister lived in Fairview, in Howth Road.
Of course I did and I am very proud to have lived there.
That is not in the county; it is in the North-East.
I was born in the area in which I now reside and I have other connections with it, connections that ensure that I would get a lot more votes than Deputy Clinton would ever get in it and he knows why.
I do not know what area the Minister is talking about now.
He has no post offices to give out.
Deputy Belton attempted to show that if he were dealing with this——
I gave the Minister alternatives. I did not say that.
——he would be able to do it so as to reduce the Fianna Fáil representation. Maybe he could but I do not think so. Certainly the constituencies he suggested would result in even stronger Fianna Fáil representation. I have no doubt that if Deputy Belton got the chance he would try to arrange the constituencies to reduce Fianna Fáil representation but I do not think that he would be successful. The constituencies he outlined would give the Fianna Fáil Party——
This suggestion that we have tried to have four-seat constituencies in the Dublin area and three-seat constituencies in the west, is not true of course. The obvious tendency in the Bill, I agree, has been towards three-seat constituencies in general. There are only ten of the 26 three-seat constituencies in the west and only 16 constituencies altogether which are not three-seat constituencies.
Why not make them all three-seat constituencies?
Two of these are five-seat constituencies which did not have to be disturbed at all. Eight of the four-seat constituencies are in the Dublin area. There is also a four-seat constituency in Longford-Westmeath which was a four-seat constituency already.
That was always there.
There is also a four-seat constituency in Westmeath and in East Limerick which are four-seat constituencies at present.
They were five-seaters until the Minister drove the people out of the country.
Those were the four-seat constituencies — Longford-Westmeath, East Limerick, South Tipperary and Mid-Cork—and another four-seat constituency is North-East Cork which is being reduced from a five-seat constituency because we are adhering to the Cork County Borough boundary. Therefore eight of the four-seat constituencies are in the Dublin area where there is a total of ten constituencies and where I would say it would be difficult to find names for any more constituencies. As I said, the tendency obviously was to go for three-seat constituencies in so far as it was reasonably feasible in the Dublin area generally. The actual point at issue here is whether North County Dublin or South County Dublin should be a four-seat constituency and which should be a three-seat constituency. The decision we made was obviously the more feasible one, the one that appears to be best from looking at the map.
Deputy Clinton is suggesting that we should have South County Dublin a four-seat constituency by including practically the whole of the district electoral division of Terenure, which we could not do. That would be in fact the more northerly part of the No. 2 area, which Deputy Clinton admits would have to be in a three-seat constituency of North County Dublin. It is obviously a matter of opinion which should be the four-seat constituency and which the three and we think it should be the north side.
I am pleased that at last we have succeeded in nailing the falsehood that the Minister was trying to establish last night, that it was impossible to create a three-seat constituency by having the No. 1 area of North County Dublin, the No. 2 area and the Baldoyle ward. It was not until we fed him with his own figures that he admitted it was a possibility.
I did not.
He now finds that he cannot lose a few votes anywhere in any of the city constituencies. If he made a three-seat constituency Deputy Foley would go. This is a Fianna Fáil Bill, a gerrymandering Bill, the same as the Referendum Bill, and we have exposed this and intend to continue exposing it. That is why we have gone to some trouble to feed the Minister with his own figures, to prove that he did not use the tolerance and still had enough people to form a three-seat constituency. I thought the Minister might have told us something about his plans for bringing part of Kildare into County Dublin. What happened to that idea? Was it the Celbridge Deputy who kicked over the traces and would not let it happen? Or was it just a further falsehood? Two nights before the referendum the Minister had leaflets circulated in the area of Newcastle and Rathcoole and the area bordering Kildare stating that, if the people did not support the Government, they would find themselves in Kildare. I saw those leaflets which were put into the people's letterboxes. These are the methods used to cement Fianna Fáil in power against the wishes of the people —threats. They will not work any longer and this Bill will be seen for what it is, another effort at gerrymandering to retain the maximum number of Fianna Fáil seats.
I gave the reason why it was important to split the No. 3 area and I am sticking to it. It was important because I headed the poll in three different elections, and by a long shot, and the Minister wanted to split that vote in two so that it would be more difficult for me to be elected on either side.
Deputy Foley came in and did a lot of blowing about the vote he got.
No, I was blowing about the great vote the Deputy got.
Deputy Foley got 3,367 first preference votes which Deputy Belton described as a football vote. I do not mind where it came from but that is what he got. I got 5,827, 2,500 more. I do not mind where he got the votes. I played football too and I see nothing wrong with playing football.
The Deputy got 18 votes more than I did the first time he stood and he was a county councillor at that time.
Deputy Foley was playing with the Dublin team.
Deputy Clinton, on the Bill.
I gained a seat in 1961.
And the Deputy was the last elected without reaching the quota. He should be ashamed to talk about it.
The Minister for Local Government is a very sincere friend of Deputy Foley's. Not only did he elect him with his and Deputy Burke's surplus but he made sure as far as he could that he would bring in the Baldoyle area which is known to be fairly strong Fianna Fáil in order to assist this limping Deputy back into the House, a Deputy who everybody knows has done nothing since he was elected until the last couple of months when he started to get active and get his name in the papers. He had an advantage, unlike me and unlike the Minister, in that he was supplied with all sorts of reports from the Minister's Department before even the county council were informed regarding grants and so on.
The Schedule to the Bill.
You were not in the Chair at the time but these are matters that were raised on the other side of the House and it is unfortunate that I cannot try to answer them.
The Chair would like the Deputy to keep to the Schedule to the Bill.
The Chair unfortunately did not do that earlier.
He did not do it when the Deputy was reading the paper from five past to twenty past eleven.
The last prompt Deputy Belton gave Deputy Clinton was not a very good one.
I did not.
As a matter of fact he did not. I was aware of the fact that Sutton and Howth were part of North County Dublin previously. I was giving the approximate population figure which I thought would be about 20,000 and I am sure I was not far wrong because it is a very densely populated area.
Indeed the Deputy was.
This was a part of North County Dublin for a long time and it would be natural that it should go back there. It did not. When I sat down Deputy Belton assured me that if that happened Fine Gael would certainly get two seats in North County Dublin. This is a Fine Gael stronghold.
Is it not a pity that Deputy Burke is not here to hear that?
Is it North County Dublin he is talking about?
The point I am making is that this is a most ridiculous constituency running as it does from Fortfield Road, Terenure, from Kimmage Manor out to within a few miles of Balbriggan. Nobody can describe that as a natural or normal constituency when the Minister had an opportunity to provide compact constituencies and this was the thing that he felt was extremely important but he is not going to be in that constituency any more himself and he did not care how awkward it was so long as it succeeded in fulfilling the purpose for which he set it up and that is to get the representation in this House for Fianna Fáil.
It is terrible to see a man of Deputy Clinton's years wailing because he finds himself out on a limb, as he says himself.
I am not wailing.
If the Deputy is not wailing, then I do not know what he is doing. I never heard such crying or saw so many bitter tears shed about losing portion of a constituency in which he got no votes.
The Deputy is not in the Queen's now.
Deputy Clinton knows the support the Fine Gael Party have in North County Dublin. If he does not know he will definitely know after the next election. He talked about the Baldoyle ward, Sutton and Howth which were in North County Dublin. He said the Minister was trying to safeguard me by making it a four-seat constituency. Why did he not go the other way and make a four-seat constituency by bringing in the area I have just mentioned? This portion would have suited me admirably. The only regret I have is that the Minister did not decide that that portion should come in to North County Dublin because Baldoyle happens to be my parish. It extends across the railway line taking in a small portion of Sutton.
That never occurred to the Minister.
I do not think Deputy Clinton realises this or he would not say he wanted the Minister to give me a portion of my own parish. The Minister did not do that. The Minister gave us a portion of the Baldoyle ward which was in County Dublin prior to two elections ago and he did not bring in the portion of Sutton or Howth which would have suited me admirably. The only regret I have is that this did not happen. As for Deputy Clinton's support on the North side I do not think he need worry about what he is going to lose because it is very difficult to lose something you have not got. Therefore he will not lose much anyhow. He said the Minister tried deliberately to cut his vote in two. If the Minister tried to cut his vote in two he would eliminate him completely because Deputy Clinton was the last Deputy elected in the last general election and he was elected without reaching the quota. He was the only Fine Gael Deputy elected in North County Dublin.
Is the Minister worrying about who is wasting time now?
We have not Taca behind us.
Is it not a great pity you have not someone behind you?
We could not buy a shop in Blanchardstown to sell Lemass and then sell it when the elections were over.
Is it not a pity you had not someone to support you?
Deputy Belton came to my office whinging about what his brother did to him.
I did not whinge.
The Deputy came in whinging about what his brother did to him.
Deputy Clinton mentioned that he got more votes than I did. That is great credit to him. It was my first time in the field. I was one of four candidates selected by the Fianna Fail Party, not being a Deputy prior to the last election.
He increased his vote by 2,500.
Deputy Clinton never reached the quota although he did increase his vote. I reached the quota and exceeded it. It is an extraordinary thing that a man in that position would try to betray me by saying to the people of County Dublin that he knows I did not work on their behalf during the past four years, practically. He knows quite well, and the people of County Dublin know quite well, that his statement is untrue. Deputy Clinton is only trying to secure for himself a press which will popularise his misinformation. He knows he has failed to capture the imagination of the people in County Dublin and therefore he has to resort to some devious means to try to get a public press so that the people will realise that there is such a person as Deputy Mark Clinton, the one Fine Gael Deputy for North and South County Dublin. It should be borne in mind that Fianna Fáil represent not only the Fianna Fáil people but the Labour people, the Fine Gael people and the people who have no Party at all. That is the policy of Fianna Fáil. We represent each and every member of the constituency of County Dublin and this is where Deputy Clinton has failed. It might pay him well——
That is why you have a political patronage secretary.
Deputy Sweetman was reading a newspaper here from 11.5 to 11.25 a.m. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle was not present. I do not think that that is in accordance with Standing Orders.
Deputy Foley is not Ceann Comhairle yet——
I said "Leas-Cheann Comhairle".
——or Leas-Cheann Comhairle, either.
Being a young Deputy, I respect the view that age is honourable. Therefore I did not want to call the attention of the Chair to Deputy Sweetman's behaviour. However, I did think that an ex-Minister for Finance would have better manners than he showed here this morning when he sat reading a newspaper instead of listening to the Minister's reply to allegations by Deputy Clinton and Deputy Belton. At the least, one would expect that Deputy Sweetman, who interceded on their behalf on two occasions, would put down the newspaper and listen to the reply——
He learned a lot from it. He was very rude.
——of the Minister who castigated the Fine Gael Party for what they are. However, it is better to allow things to stand. I would say once again to Deputy Clinton: "Do not be worried about Deputy Foley. Irrespective of what kind of propaganda Deputy Clinton puts out, Deputy Foley will survive politically because he has worked hard for the people not only for the past few months, as Deputy Clinton has said, but for the past four years. Deputy Foley will continue to do so up to the next election and if the people of County Dublin deem it fit, Deputy Foley will continue to work for them after the next general election."
In North County Dublin Fine Gael have two county councillors and so have Fianna Fáil. I am glad Deputy Foley told us he is in the Baldoyle Parish which is now being given to County Dublin.
And a little bit that is not—Kilbarrack.
This is given to you. That is just to hide something. The Minister gave us plenty of figures. It is a question of doing addition. If I understood him correctly, we should divide 27 into 56,772. The figure he should divide is 20,000 and that gives us 28 seats and there would be no trouble seeking where to put the votes. That is the division he must also do in the country areas. The Minister is giving a favourable tolerance to them and an unfavourable tolerance in the city of Dublin, which is a growing area. If we divide likewise in respect of Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown we get our 11 seats and 6,000 over and if we add it into Dublin we have 14,000 over and that can be used as a tolerance.
The Minister mentioned that they had four-seat constituencies in the country. He mentioned East Limerick. He would not change that because Fianna Fáil have two seats out of four there. Tipperary: four seats. Fianna Fáil have two seats there. If he changed that he would be hurting the Fianna Fáil Deputies and would also lose a seat for Fianna Fáil. Wexford—Fianna Fáil have two seats out of four there and that could not be changed. Longford—they happen to have two seats there and an Independent who is favourable. That could not be changed or there would be terrible trouble; they would lose one and maybe two seats in that area. The Minister also mentioned that, if he were to change at all, he would have to divide streets. How can he divide Dublin except by crossing streets? He has already done it. His argument is beyond explanation. Take my old constituency of Dublin North-East and the constituency of North Central. How did the Minister divide them?
Going up the old Howth Road you find that is divided again on both sides of the road, across and down with a bit in and a bit out. This is done right through the city. The Minister said he did not like taking pieces of the city and putting them in the county or putting bits of the county into the city but he has done it to suit Deputy Foley at Baldoyle. Ballyfermot, which for years was in the city—I do not know the number of votes but I know that Deputies Seán Dunne, Mark Clinton and the Minister get so many votes out of it— voted in the county. What is wrong with continuing that? The Minister wants the county kept separate. Why does he keep Dún Laoghaire and the county separate? The big thing in Dún Laoghaire was that he moved a section out of it because the next seat after four had to go to Labour or Fine Gael, not to Fianna Fáil. Labour would have the better chance, I agree. In the case of that seat if you left Mount Merrion area in it, the fifth seat had to go to either Labour, which probably had the better chance, or Fine Gael. Fianna Fáil had no chance. This is the reason that Dún Laoghaire is not getting it, not to be good to Dún Laoghaire or anything like that or to keep county and city separate.
My understanding was that as far as possible we should elect a Deputy to represent 20,000 with a tolerance either way but the Minister has decided to give only 27 to Dublin. Then he divides by 27.
I suppose there is no point in putting the facts before Deputy Clinton. He insists on coming back with the same unsubstantiated statements that he knows are completely wrong. He claimed that he has nailed the falsehood that it is impossible to have a three-seat constituency comprising the No. 1 and No. 2 electoral areas and Baldoyle ward. I have proved to Deputy Clinton from the figures that that cannot be if—and I agree with this —you have only 38 seats for the Dublin area. It cannot be done on the present interpretation of the constitutional provision. It cannot be done except by exercising a greater tolerance from the national average of population per Deputy than 5 per cent which we believe is the maximum that we are entitled to use.
I have given Deputy Clinton the figures taken from the Census of Population. These are the only figures we are entitled to use and the Deputy knows that, if you have a three-seat constituency made up as he suggests of the No. 1 and No. 2 electoral areas and the Baldoyle ward, then there is too great a population left to contain the eight seats that remain in the County Dublin administrative area including the Borough of Dún Laoghaire. Deputy Clinton knows this and he cannot contradict the figures.
With regard to the suggestion that part of Kildare might be put into County Dublin, of course there are many different ways in which this problem could be solved and this would be one of the possibilities but we decided to try so far as possible to adhere to the boundaries of County Dublin and adhere to the boundaries of Dublin city and it was only in this case where it was forced upon us that we had this slight transfer of population from the city area to the county area.
As has been fairly well established, the suggestion that has been made by Deputy Clinton—I do not know whether it is on behalf of the Fine Gael Party or not because apparently nobody can speak for the Fine Gael Party——
Who can speak for the Fianna Fáil Cabinet?
——but the suggestion that he has made that we should have completely ignored the existence of the boundary of the borough of Dublin would, as has been established, suit the existing Fianna Fáil Deputies much better than the present proposed area.
Could the Minister tell us about Kildare?
Deputy Clinton claims that a three-seat constituency could be formed in the north of Dublin merely by taking in the area of Howth and Sutton. I think Deputy Clinton told me that he actually had a copy of the census.
I said I did not know the figures.
If he has a copy of the census he can get the figures. If he wants to be accurate and truthful he can look up page 88 in the census report and he will see there that the population of Beann Eadair ward is 7,377. The population of the part of north County Dublin north of the Navan Road, which Deputy Clinton thinks should be the border, is approximately 42,300. It is not available with absolute accuracy because whoever designed the Navan Road decided for some reason or other not to adhere to the boundaries of district electoral divisions or townlands but decided instead to cut corners and so on. So, the nearest approximation that we can get to the population of County Dublin north of the Navan Road is 42,300. If you add the population of the Beann Eadair ward and the Baldoyle ward to that you get 51,774. As I have shown, the average for three seats would be in the region of 62,300 so that another 10,000 or 10,500 would have to be added to this area from some other part of the north city of Dublin. This would suit Deputy Foley even better because these could only come from the Coolock or Raheny wards. As Deputy Clinton is aware, and Deputy Belton even more so, this is an area that would suit Deputy Foley even better than North County Dublin.
The Minister can say anything. He does not have to prove it.
It is no wonder that Deputy Belton should be saying to Deputy Clinton: "Get rid of this part of my constituency; this is no use to me." That is the area where my colleague, the Minister for Finance, gets the votes at present and where Deputy Foley would get all the votes if Deputy Clinton's arrangement were adopted. Admittedly, this could all be done in a different way if we had an extra seat for Dublin city as Deputy Belton advocates. I should like to know is this Fine Gael policy, that instead of there being 38 seats in Dublin there should be 39? Can anybody speak for Fine Gael? Deputy Belton says it should be dealt with by putting 28 seats instead of 27 into the city of Dublin and leaving the 11 seats in the county. That means an extra seat for Dublin. Will Deputy Belton tell us from where is this seat to come?
One man one vote.
Have Fine Gael decided even this? Can they decide anything?
Last night we had six Fine Gael Deputies in the Front Bench and four of them put forward four different solutions which they said were their solutions for one corner of the country. Now Deputy Belton says that the way to deal with this is to take an extra seat from the rural areas and put it into Dublin city. But what part of it? Will Deputy Belton tell us where it is to come from? Has he cleared this with the Fine Gael Deputies concerned and with his Party? As far as I can see there is only one thing certain that Fine Gael are agreed on in regard to this Bill and that is to delay it as much as possible by a concerted effort with relays of Fine Gael speakers coming in here making ridiculous suggestions without any consultation with each other, contradicting each other at every juncture and on every part of the Schedule with the sole object of delaying the passage of the Bill as much as possible so as, they think, to make the possible date of the general election as far distant as possible. That apparently is their sole objective.
Tripe, and the Minister knows it is tripe.
Why are the relays of speakers coming in and making these ridiculous suggestions which can so easily be disproved? Why is there no consultation? Why is there no agreed line? Why does Deputy Belton suggest that we have not taken enough seats from rural Ireland and that we should take another into the Dublin area? Has he cleared that with his Party?
Nobody suggested that. I shall clear this with the Minister in a moment.
Is that Fine Gael policy? Is there any Fine Gael policy about anything?
Again, the Minister has tried to misquote what Deputy Clinton said. Deputy Clinton said "Sutton and Howth" and the Minister refers to "Howth, Beann Eadair." He speaks of Howth and Sutton, and he should know from his own Department that it takes in Kilbarrack where, at the back, many houses are built at the moment and they vote in Sutton schools and some of them go to Baldoyle. Howth should be taken into it. The Minister should not be trying to mislead by taking one section of what the Deputy said. I know it is all right for the Minister to get the average vote that would elect a Deputy, which is 20,000. To find the number of seats you divide by 20,000. This is what the Minister did. That is the number of seats we can now have with a tolerance of five per cent. That is the way to do it. But the Minister says "No, I am giving only 27 to Dublin and we can divide 27 into it and now we shall see how we can get rid of the surplus."
The Minister has a fleet of civil servants to help him to prepare this. The civil servants had to do what he said. I am not saying they are behind this proposal but the simplest thing the civil servants could have done was to divide 20,000 into the total votes. If you take Dublin with 568,000 and divide that by 20,000, it gives 28 seats with 8,000 votes as a surplus. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is 226,000, approximately, according to the Minister's figures.
I did not say Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown at all.
Sorry. Dividing that gives you 11 seats with 6,000 to spare which is quite a good tolerance on both. There is nothing to be got rid of. All I am doing is dividing it. Yesterday, the Minister had Deputy Harte telling him that what he was doing was retaining an extra seat in Donegal but it is an extra Fianna Fáil Deputy he is retaining, not an extra seat. I did not hear the Minister denying that in the four-seat constituencies being retained in rural Ireland, two out of the four are held by Fianna Fáil. If Fianna Fáil held only one seat in these constituencies, they would have been changed very quickly. If there were five-seaters in Dublin they know the trouble they would be in. In every election since 1961, Fianna Fáil have been losing ground in Dublin. In general elections, in local elections and in the Presidential election, they continued to go down. Deputy Foley spoke about North County Dublin and County Dublin. In the referendum the "yes" vote was 15,755 and the "no" vote was 32,073—two to one against.
That was not a political issue.
It was a political issue. Who paid for it, who spoke for it, who spoke against it?
We will not discuss the referendum at this stage.
The Deputy's Leader was in favour of it.
Deputy Foley spoke but he had nothing to say. All he could do was to draw attention to the fact that Deputy Sweetman was reading a newspaper. He did not tell us that what Deputy Sweetman was reading was the disastrous result of the referendum, showing that in County Dublin Fianna Fáil got the second worst beating they sustained in the whole of Ireland.
We are back to the referendum again.
The Deputy need not fear for Deputy Clinton in those circumstances. When he spoke earlier, I appealed to the Minister to tell us something about Kildare. He wants to hasten this debate but I want to tell him something about the threats he had circulated during the referendum campaign in the County Dublin area bordering Kildare to the effect that the people there would find themselves in Kildare before the next general election. However, the Minister sat down without dealing with this and it was a serious oversight on his part. Obviously he had other plans for that area until his colleague in Celbridge upset them by kicking up and saying he would not have it. It must have been possible to make some other adjustment there and the Minister must have had some other adjustment in mind at the time. He put forward various plans today for the constituency but we have not heard about the area I have been referring to. I hope that before we finish the debate the Minister will tell us something about it because I feel sure there is an interesting alternative.
In order to make a point, which was not valid, about portion of the No. 2 area in Dublin, to the effect that that portion was more southerly than the portion of the No. 3 area which he has broken up and taken in, the Minister spoke about half a dozen votes and, in derogatory fashion, he spoke as if I did not know the area. The people of Dublin County know that they see me far more often in the various areas there than they see the Minister. Let the Minister know—he will learn it later—that the people realise who is doing the work, without having it advertised some days before with the Minister's assistance and the assistance of other people.
I sympathise with Deputies Belton and Clinton because apparently it was not sufficient for the Fine Gael Whip to come in to instruct them to keep this thing going. The Leader of their Party had to come in to compel them to do their duty by the Party and to delay this as far as possible by repeating the arguments already dealt with effectively.
We told the Minister how to get a quick general election.
I agree that it is constitutionally possible to take an extra seat from rural Ireland and to put it into Dublin, but Fianna Fáil decided this was something that should not be done. They decided that the allocation of seats to Dublin should be 38, not 39 as Deputy Belton has been advocating.
One man one vote.
On the basis of one man, one vote, the vote per man——
An equal vote.
——in the Dublin area is substantially more valuable in so far as electing a representative is concerned than it is in rural Ireland. Deputy Belton knows that. He knows that every temporary resident in a hotel in Dublin is counted in order to increase the effectiveness of the votes of the permanent residents in the Dublin area.
Are all the travellers in the country counted in the country as well as in Dublin?
They are not. They are counted where they reside. The figure for voters, compared with the figures for population, show that, even on the basis of the present proposals, the number of voters per Deputy in Dublin will be substantially fewer than in the rest of Ireland. Deputy Belton suggested there should be an extra seat in Dublin. I admit that is constitutionally permissible. What we are proposing is also, we believe, constitutionally permissible and also fairer. Do the Fine Gael Party agree with Deputy Belton that there should be a seat taken from rural Ireland and given to Dublin? If so, then I agree with Deputy Clinton's solutions for Nos. 1 and 2 areas. They would be possible, but only on the basis of an extra seat which Fine Gael propose, through their spokesman, Deputy Belton, to take from the country and put into Dublin.
I must admit that on the second occasion when Deputy Belton advocated this he indicated where the seat should come from—from County Donegal. There is one thing consistent about Fine Gael in this. It is their concentration on the possibility of getting rid of Deputy O'Donnell in Donegal. What exactly did Deputy O'Donnell do that there should be this concentration on exporting some of his constituents to Connacht, and on this deduction of a seat from that area and its allocation to Dublin? I do not know what the idea is.
I have dealt with the question of putting part of Kildare into County Dublin or part of County Dublin into Kildare. It is one of the ways in which this situation could be dealt with—one of the many, the infinite number of ways —but one of the decisions we came to was not to mix up parts of County Dublin with some other county. It would be feasible to deal with the situation in Kildare by adding part of South County Dublin to it, which apparently is what Deputy Clinton is advocating apparently realising that he has not got a particularly good chance in the constituency he has been misrepresenting for some years. What he wants to do is to get himself put into Kildare.
The Minister has been threatening to do this.
It is a possibility. The population of Kildare is too great for three seats and too small for four, and one of the many ways in which the situation could be dealt with is by transferring Deputy Clinton, as he apparently desires, from County Dublin to Kildare.
I am perfectly happy to be left in Dublin.
It would have suited Deputy Clinton better to have cut him off from the area he has been ignoring in County Dublin. It would have suited him better than the present arrangement. However, I think it is quite obvious that the sole object of Fine Gael is to delay the passage of the Bill, remembering that they had to have a joint effort by the Leader of the Party and the Whip to get Deputy Belton and Deputy Clinton to keep the debate going while Deputy L'Estrange went out to round up some more of his Party to delay the Bill further.
Listening to the Minister, nobody is surprised at his hypocrisy, his effrontery and his ignorance. He has been a Deputy of this House for some 20 years and he should know that when the register of electors is being compiled people in hotels and hospitals are not put on the register for either Dublin city or county but are put on the register in the area from which they come, let it be Westmeath, Louth, Monaghan or anywhere else.
The Minister knows that as well as I do, but he does not want to admit it. His one idea seems to be to cause confusion and to delay the passage of this measure. The Fine Gael Party are not here to delay the passage of this Bill. We are here to do our duty as an Opposition and to show up the unnecessary butchering and gerrymandering in this Bill in an effort by Fianna Fáil to keep themselves in office. As far as we are concerned, we believe in one man one vote. The Minister asked on whose behalf Deputy Clinton was speaking. Deputy Clinton was speaking on behalf of a united Fine Gael Party not on behalf of a Party divided as the Minister's Party is at the moment. In a recent speech the Minister stated that, if Fianna Fáil did not go back to their principle of abolishing the Border, there would be a second Republican Party started.
The Deputy is getting away from the Bill. We are on the constituency of North County Dublin.
The Minister rambled all over the place and he was not called to order.
We are discussing the constituency of North County Dublin.
What did Fianna Fáil do about the Border in the last 30 years? Nothing at all.
Order. There is nothing in this about the abolition of the Border.
The plan in relation to North County Dublin is quite plain. It is also plain in relation to Dublin city. The idea is to gerrymander. In Dublin city and county Fianna Fáil support has dropped to around 30 per cent of the vote—the figures are there to prove it—and it is Fianna Fáil's idea now to create four-seat constituencies in the hope that, by some miracle, they may get two out of four. In 1947 Fianna Fáil had a majority of the votes in Dublin. There were no four-seat constituencies in Dublin at that time; there were three-or five-seat constituencies. Now that the support has dwindled they want to make the constituencies four-seat constituencies in the hope that they will get two out of the four. In 1961 there were only two four-seat constituencies. Now the proposal is to have eight plus one in County Dublin, making nine.
It is not.
I am sorry. I should have said eight. Deputy Foley is like a man whistling passing a graveyard. Despite what the Deputy said, in the referendum Fianna Fáil were beaten two to one. There was a majority of 16,318 against Fianna Fáil.
The referendum was not a political issue.
Order. Would Deputy Foley please cease interrupting? We are not discussing the referendum.
Judging by the votes cast against the referendum proposals, it is obvious now that Deputy Clinton and the other Fine Gael candidates will head the poll; we will get two out of the four seats in North County Dublin.
I, as Deputy L'Estrange well knows, never suggested that temporary residents were put on the register of the area.
The Minister did; he said people in hotels and hospitals.
I was talking about the document, which is the relevant one in the allocation of seats for Dáil elections, which is the census of population; not alone are temporary residents in hotels from other parts of the country counted in the population of Dublin but even sailors on board ship in harbour are counted, irrespective of their country of origin.
We know the reason for that. Nobody can tell Deputy Belton more about that than Deputy Clinton. Let Deputy Belton discuss the question of nurses on the register with his colleague, Deputy Clinton, because Deputy Clinton knows all about that. He knows all about stealing people's votes.
The Minister a short time ago made wild allegations.
Order.
The only other point Deputy L'Estrange raised was the volume of political support.
On a point of order. The Minister has accused Deputy Clinton of stealing votes off the register. Is that parliamentary?
These political charges have been made here all down the years and there is very little the Chair can do about them.
The Fianna Fáil Party are adepts at stealing votes all over the country.
Does the Chair support the Minister in making this allegation when there is no evidence to support it?
It is a political charge and the Chair can do nothing about it.
This is the second time the Minister has done this. I even wrote and asked him to meet me any time, and the people concerned, but I got no reply.
Sir, I was interrupted. With regard to the evidence of political support available to Fianna Fáil, we have had recent evidence of that support in winning six by-elections out of seven and we shall have more evidence of that support in the near future when we win the three pending by-elections.
All on a reduced majority.
The only other point is the question which seems to be agitating the minds of the Fine Gael Party so much that they keep sending in relays of speakers to delay this, that is, the question of the amount of support Deputy Foley gets in Dublin. The fact of the matter is that although Deputy Foley was on a panel including Deputy P.J. Burke and myself, and both had a substantial surplus over the quota, and there was also a fourth candidate who got a substantial first preference vote, he still got more first preferences than Deputy Clinton the first time he stood. He was elected with a surplus over the quota.
What was the total poll?
Deputy Clinton got the fifth seat without the quota, the sole Fine Gael seat.
Tell the truth.
He got the last seat without the quota.
If they finished the count he would have got 4,000 over the quota.
We got our three Deputies elected, Deputy Dunne got in and there was a residue of one seat which Deputy Clinton got.
Another false statement.
We do not have to do any gerrymandering in County Dublin to ensure a Fianna Fáil majority. It is there. Perhaps Deputy Clinton will not get in even without the quota now, but that is not my fault.
If we are to stoop to personalities I will tell the people what MacEoin did to save the Minister. Do not draw me.
He did nothing.
Yes, he did. If we are to stoop to personalities I will tell the House how he saved the Minister.
I saved him from having to thumb his way home from Spain.
I want to refer to what the Minister said about delaying tactics by this Party in relation to this Bill.
Last night he raised this matter and we assured him that, if he would tell us that at the end of the discussion on this Bill we would have a general election, we would give him all Stages last night.
I am not the Taoiseach.
If the Minister will say now that at the end of this discussion we will have a general election we will give him all Stages now. That offer puts an end to the foolish argument that we are delaying the Bill. He said it was constitutionally possible to have another Deputy in the Dublin area. If that is so why has it not been done? Talk about worrying about the people in rural Ireland where the population does not exist did not work even in the referendum. Tolerance was held out as the carrot to win the referendum in rural Ireland, but it was rejected by the people because they believe in the principle of one man one vote. We now have a constituency of North County Dublin which no one recognises as North County Dublin and no one ever will recognise as North County Dublin running from Balbriggan to Fortfield Road in Terenure. This is done for the purpose of splitting the No. 3 Area.
Will Deputy Foley allow the Deputy in possession to speak?
Deputy Clinton knows that, unlike the Fine Gael Party, there is only one Taoiseach, one leader, in the Fianna Fáil Party.
Since when?
Therefore, I am not competent to say that we will have a general election tomorrow or any other time. So far as I can see, every Deputy in the Fine Gael Party has a completely different and personal solution to this problem. I admit that many solutions are possible. Deputy Clinton asked why, if it is constitutionally possible, we did not allocate an extra seat in the Dublin area. I have told him the reason already. It is also constitutionally possible to allocate the number of seats we have decided to allocate to the rural part of the country. The decision we took was to allocate the maximum number of seats to that area. That left 38 seats for Dublin which I think, and which the Fianna Fáil Party think, is adequate representation for that area.
Deputy Clinton and Deputy Belton think that an extra seat should be taken from rural Ireland. That is their opinion. We think otherwise. I want to know was this a Fine Gael Party decision. No one can assume that because Deputy Belton and Deputy Clinton say it is Fine Gael policy, it is Fine Gael policy, because no one knows what Fine Gael policy on anything is. They speak with different voices.
I wonder would the Minister tell us—it is a detail—why in forming the South County Dublin constituency he crossed the Bray Road and took in a pocket of votes on the far side. Now he sees that was stupid and he throws it out again. He accused us of not knowing County Dublin but I have enough knowledge to know that that was not sensible.
So far from throwing out the crossing of the Bray Road again what we are doing in this amendment is the exact opposite. I do not want to cross the Bray Road at all. If Deputy Belton wants to know the significance of the amendment of that part of the proposed constituency of South County Dublin he can more usefully make inquiries within his own Party.
Wrong again. It was Deputy Clinton who asked the question, not Deputy Belton.
Why was it necessary to cross the Bray Road in forming that constituency?
I can assure the Deputy that I do not want to cross it. It is a dangerous occupation crossing the Bray road.
The Minister brought in the Bill.
The Minister should give a few pounds for the purpose of having a job done there and it would be quite safe.
When money was given to do the Bray Road the Coalition of Labour and Fine Gael——
Is a discussion on the Bray Road in order?
——combined to refuse to take the money when it could have been done at a reasonable cost, and not at the expense of the roads in other parts of the country.
Why was it not done years ago?
We were not in power in Dublin County Council.
Last year your man was chairman.
The only way we could get the Council to do any work was to abolish it and to put in a commissioner.
He appointed three rate collectors and they ran away with the money.
Fine Gael and Labour control Dublin County Council.
This does not arise.
It is about time Fianna Fáil realised it.
It is a pity they would not widen the road.
I move amendment No. 15:
In page 7, in the second column of the entry relating to South County Dublin, to delete "(with the exception of the townlands of Ballymakaily, Brownstown, Coolscuddan, Gollierstown, Grange, Mullauns)"; after "Dundrum" to insert "(except the part thereof which is comprised in the constituency of Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown)"; and after "Milltown," to insert "Rathmichael (except the part thereof which is comprised in the constituency of Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown)."
Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 form a composite proposal and perhaps they could be discussed together.
The purpose of the amendments is to transfer the townlands of Mount Merrion South—district electoral division of Dundrum— Brennanstown, Kerrymount, Kilbogget, Loughlinstown, Blackthorn, Carmanhall, Carmanhall and Leopardstown and Carrickmines Little—all in the district electoral division of Ballybrack— to the proposed constituency of Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown from South County Dublin in exchange for the district electoral division of Rathmichael —except the townland of Shanganagh. It has been represented to me that these changes are desirable for the convenience of electors and to improve the boundary line.
This proposed adjustment between South County Dublin and Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown will enable the part of Newcastle district electoral division which is in the proposed constituency of North County Dublin, that is, the townlands of Ballymakaily, Brownstown, Coolscuddan, Gollierstown, Grange and Mullauns, to be taken into South County Dublin and the amendment also proposes to make this transfer. This will bring the entire Newcastle district electoral division into the proposed constituency of South County Dublin and I believe that it is an obvious and desirable thing to do.
I move amendment No. 16:
In page 8, in the second column of the entry relating to Dún Laoghaire and Rathdown, to delete the matter in the second column and substitute the following:
"The district electoral division of Stillorgan and the townlands of: Blackthorn, Brennanstown, Bullock, Carmanhall, Carmanhall and Leopardstown, Carrickmines Little, Kerrymount, Kilbogget, Loughlinstown, Rochestown, Rochestown Domain, Thomastown, in the district electoral division of Ballybrack; Mount Merrion South, in the district electoral division of Dundrum; Shanganagh, in the district electoral division of Rathmichael; in the former Rural District of Rathdown No. 1; and the borough of Dún Laoghaire."
In Dublin Central for the first time for quite a while—it may have happened some time back— there is a situation where a four-seat constituency has been set up which Dublin rarely had. There were a five-seater and a three-seater in Dublin but now there is a four-seater.
As the support of Fianna Fáil has been dwindling, they are hoping, by having four-seaters in Dublin and three-seaters in the country, to hang on to power. If it were a three-seater in North County Dublin, the result would be one/one/one and if it were a five seater, the result would be three/two against Fianna Fáil but they are looking for a four-seater in the hope that they will get two out of four. In order to do that, it would be necessary for them to get 42 per cent of the vote but this they will not get. However, they have set this out and have gerrymandered the whole country in the same way hoping to get the best out of it.
Deputy Belton maintains that it is not necessary to cross the boundary of the River Liffey. I do not know if Deputy Clinton has left his copy of the census behind but if he has and if Deputy Belton looks at page 88 he will see that the population of the north part of Dublin city is 287,846 and with the Baldoyle ward taken out of that, the population will be 285,700 odd. The population of Dublin South City is 280,926. On the basis of 38 seats for Dublin, that is 11 in the county area and 27 in the city area, it must be quite clear to Deputy Belton that the boundary of the Liffey cannot be adhered to. I will agree that if we take what now appears to be Fine Gael's official suggestion—since, unlike some of their other suggestions, it has not been contradicted by anybody else —we should have taken an extra seat from rural Ireland and then we would have 28 seats for Dublin. It would not then have been necessary to breach the traditional and physical boundary of the Liffey but with 27 seats and with the distribution of the population this, of course, was unavoidable.
Squeezing these two extra seats into the confines of Dublin borough boundary made it inevitable, if we were to have any kind of rational constituency at all, to create this extra constituency, to have seven constituencies instead of the existing six and to create this extra constituency of Dublin Central which, as I have said, inescapably takes in areas on both sides of the Liffey.
Surely if, as the Minister says, it would be possible to have this extra seat in Dublin, and it would be constitutionally correct, the fact that that would leave North Dublin and South Dublin as two distinct units, should have had a bearing on it. Prior to the last local elections when the south side came in on the north side, the Minister regarded it as the correct thing to do to make a clear-cut division between north and south. At that time every member of the Party and of every other Party agreed with him that it was a major advance but now he has gone back on that for Dáil purposes and he has the north and the south coming into one constituency. Surely, if the allocation of an extra seat could have avoided this, that should have been the course adopted?
The Minister is using this argument hoping that in some way he will get publicity which will help him to take a seat from the country.
The Minister first got the answer he wanted and then worked backwards. The proper way to do a sum is to start at the beginning and get the answer but the Minister wanted to know the answer first and then work back from there to suit himself and this is what he has done.
Heretofore, the basis of ministerial effort in setting up a constituency in Dublin was to have five-seaters and, if this was not possible, to go down to four or three, whichever was suitable. In this particular area of the north side where there are 14 seats, why would it not be possible to have two five-seaters and a four-seater? Something similar could be done on the south side. The Minister is trying to safeguard some of his Deputies and he is doing his best to hold on to these two seats. It is just a gerrymander. What he could not do in the referendum he is now trying to do in spite of the people's wishes.
Listening to the Minister here, one would be pardoned for thinking that it was a very reasonable proposition that he has put before the House and that it was the only thing that could be done. It is neither reasonable nor the only thing that could be done. In fact, the Dublin constituencies can be split up in any way and should be split up in more five-seat constituencies.
The purpose of PR is largely defeated if the constituencies are made too small. Generally speaking, over the whole country the three-member constituencies have been enormously increased and the five-member constituencies have virtually disappeared; I think there are two left in the whole country. The Minister's argument that the only way to divide the city was in four-member constituencies is not true. His Party have decided, for various reasons, all political, that the four-member constituencies will get the maximum return from the Fianna Fáil vote in the city of Dublin, north and south. If they had split them up into three-member constituencies in certain areas they would probably only get one person in. Likewise, they were afraid, if they split them into five-member constituencies, they would not get three seats. They think they stand a better chance of retaining two in four-member constituencies than of getting three in five-member constituencies. It is a kind of statistical game, and I do not suppose it will be completely clear until after the next general election, but the alteration of the Dublin constituencies has been done for no other reason than the advantage of the Party in power. That is the sole reason, and that is why we have this anomaly in Dublin of crossing the Liffey. It has been done in the past on occasions, but it was broken away from whenever it was possible.
The Liffey is a natural boundary running through the centre of the city —I have referred to this earlier on the Bill—and the interests of the North side and the South side are not always exactly the same. Any electoral boundary which has crossed the Liffey in the past has never existed very long. It was inevitably put back with its natural components; in other words, the South of the Liffey stood for a big constituency and the North the same way. But the purpose of this crossing of the Liffey is a purely political move. The idea that it is necessary in some way to have four-member constituencies is nonsense. If it was desired, it is possible to have seven or even 11-member constituencies. I am not necessarily advocating those, but there is no reason why they could not be made, so the contention of the Minister that we must have four-member constituencies is incorrect. The truth of the matter is that whether you have 27 or 28 Deputies who represent the city of Dublin, you can divide the seats up any way you like. It is possible to have so many five-seaters, so many six-seaters and so on. I must, therefore, contradict the Minister's statement that this somehow was the only thing to do. This is not so. It was done for political reasons.
Both Deputy Beltons are now on record as saying that this extra seat should have been taken from rural Ireland.
If it would avoid crossing the Liffey.
Deputy Belton says this should have been done in the very noble cause of trying to avoid a Dublin constituency crossing the Liffey. It would not, of course, matter if this involved a rural constituency crossing the Shannon. Contrary to what Deputy Belton says, it is not just a question——
Is the Minister saying none of the new constituencies crosses the Shannon? He crossed it in Roscommon.
No.
Yes. He brought Athlone into it.
Yes, on the western side of the Shannon. I am coming to that. We are not crossing the Shannon; we are adhering to the Shannon boundary. It is not just a question of the allocation of an extra seat. There is also the question of the deduction of a seat from some other part of Ireland. While Fine Gael have told me that we should allocate this extra seat to Dublin, they have not told me where we are to take the seat from, and this is something it is essential to know. Contrary again to what Deputy Dockrell has said, there is no way of avoiding crossing the River Liffey with some constituency except by the allocation of this extra seat to the city area. Deputy Dockrell must know that, deducting the Baldoyle Ward from the North City area, if you have a population of 285,749 there and in the South City area a population of 280,926, with 27 constituencies available and approximately the same population north and south of the River Liffey, whether you use an 11-seat constituency or not you cannot avoid crossing the Liffey. Deputy Dockrell must know that. The furthest you can go is to have a 13seat constituency and a 14-seat constituency, but either of these would be in breach of the constitutional provision in regard to equality or near equality of the ratio of population per Deputy. Any other arrangement whatever that Deputy Dockrell or anybody else suggests in the area of Dublin city on that basis of 27 seats must involve some constituency crossing the boundary of the River Liffey.
Why did the Minister take out Baldoyle?
I explained that to the Deputy's cousin and if he had been here I would have explained it to him. If Deputy Belton is interested in that —and I doubt if he is—he can read it in the Official Report. On the other hand, if you think, Sir, I should extend to Deputy Luke Belton, who has now come into the House, the courtesy of repeating what I have already told Deputy Paddy Belton, then I am quite prepared to do it.
Repetition is not in order.
But it is on the records of the House and it would not be too much to suggest to Deputy Belton that he should look it up there.
I agree that on a previous occasion, when constituencies in Dublin crossed the Liffey boundary, they were found to be unsatisfactory and had to be changed. As far as this one is concerned, I would not have agreed to it unless I had to do it. I hope that with the passage of time it will be possible to change this as well and go back to recognising the Liffey as the boundary which it has always been for Dublin city. This is only done because of the situation that is there.
It is only a shortterm solution.
There is another thing there. The Minister was quick to say he could not have nine-seat and seven-seat constituencies on the north side without crossing the Liffey. He could have three- and four-seat constituencies and he could have some three-seat, four-seat and five-seat constituencies. The Minister must have a very good reason for going for the four-seat constituencies. We could have three- and four-seat constituencies but the Minister is insistent on four-seat constituencies and he has a reason. He wants to get back at the people and get his own way which was rejected in the referendum.
Deputy Belton says that we could have 12 seats on the north side and 12 seats on the south side of the Liffey but that could not be done because there are 27 seats. Let us say that the 12 was a slip of the tongue and say it is 13 instead. He would then find that the population per Deputy would be too great on the north side or the south side.
What about fourteen?
I would agree with the Deputy if we had 28 seats but we have not. If Fine Gael were doing this I would agree they would have taken two seats from rural Ireland and put them into Dublin, but we decided not to do that. There are only 27 seats, not 28. If there were 28 seats this difficulty of the Liffey boundary would not arise. It arises because there are only 27 seats and the population is much the same north and south of the Liffey. I never said, as Deputy Belton suggests, that there was only one possible way of arranging the constituencies in the city of Dublin. There is an infinite number of ways of doing this. You could have one 27-seat constituency, you could have three nine-seat constituencies or you could have nine three-seat constituencies. We have decided we should have seven constituencies.
Why pick seven? Is that your lucky number?
The five-seat constituencies have proved to be long, straggling constituencies in the city of Dublin and it was quite obvious in arranging some five-seat constituencies on this occasion that there would have been great difficulty in division of streets and in straggling areas stretching from one to the other. As I said, we in Fianna Fáil believe the most suitable type of constituency is the three-seat constituency. But this would involve thinking up extra names.
What is wrong with that?
Let Deputy Belton think up names.
Does the Minister mean to say that the only reason for not doing this is because he would not have enough names? That is the most stupid argument I ever heard.
Does the Minister mean to say he could not think up names for constituencies? I hope that the people read this. That is the most ridiculous argument I have heard, that he cannot get names. Surely there are enough names and numbers available? The Minister says that is the only reason why he is doing this.
Think up names.
Could he not number them the same as in local elections.
It is so easy to confuse the Fine Gael Party. They would not know the difference between the No. 1 constituency and the No. 1 electoral area.
I want to assure the Minister it is not so easy to confuse the people of Dublin and he will find that out.
When he goes to the country he will find it out again.
Surely his own Taoiseach put before him that they had to remember the result of the referendum which they received in no uncertain terms?
Are you trying to form a Coalition over there?
Does the Minister think we should adopt his line and not talk in the House?
We are not like him.
What about the Bray Road repairs?
We had that before.
His Taoiseach had to apologise for him recently.
I am putting the question.
Deputy Belton is on his feet.
He is not being relevant. He is not relating his remarks to the question before the House.
He is as relevant to the question as Deputy Foley was.
You are making one rule for one side and another for the other.
That is quite untrue.
It is correct.
The Deputy may not make such a charge against the Chair. I will ask the Deputy to resume his seat.
Is he entitled to withdraw his remark?
It is a matter for the Chair.
Of course, he makes one ruling for one side of the House and another for the other.
Will Deputy Belton please resume his seat?
As a protest I will leave the House.
Deputy L. Belton withdrew.
Is the entry relating to Dublin Central agreed?
Put the question.
I have made my protest against your ruling.
DUBLIN NORTH-CENTRAL.
The Minister spent quite a while here, when I brought up the number of people in a constituency per elected Deputy, putting forward the view that my argument would not work. I am again here objecting to a four-seat constituency when it could be a five-seat one but that would not suit his Party. They are trying to gerrymander here again but the people will give them the same answer.
I do not think Deputy Belton has made any point here.
I move amendment No. 17:
In page 9, in the second column of the entry relating to Dublin North-East, to delete "south-westerly" and to substitute "north-westerly", and to delete "north-easterly" where it first occurs and substitute "southeasterly".
This is an amendment which proposes to correct minor inaccuracies in the description of the boundary of the proposed Dublin North-East constituency at Clontarf golf course.
Can the Minister tell us how many people are involved?
There are not any.
How many inaccuracies will that correct?
It is an inaccuracy only in the description.
There is no change in the population?
No.
I just want to say as regards Dublin North-East that the same thing happened here as happened in a Mayo area. It was divided so that it would suit two Ministers. It is the same thing here. In the last general election we had one Minister and a member of his Party got another 300 or 400 votes. He would not have come into the Dáil otherwise. They made sure this would not happen. They split the area in the hope of giving one of their Ministers a viable vote in another area. It is a four-seat area. I do not know why it could not be a five-seater and a three-seater which would suit geographically.
That cannot be done, but there is the River Tolka and the canal which could be used. They could have used many crossroads going through the area and have a five-seater and a three-seater but the Minister insisted on a four-seater and a four-seater he is going to push through.
Deputy Belton knows this is not so. The constituency of Dublin North-East was not split for the purpose of separating two Ministers. It was revised because of the fact that the present population of Dublin North-East is 139,163 and it cannot any longer continue as a five-seat constituency. It is agreed that it could have been made a seven-seat constituency but we decided against that. We think seven-seat constituencies are ridiculous.
A five and a three then?
We decided on four and four.
Why did you not make it five and three? The Minister says he is fond of three and he will not take five. He will not take three. Four or five is the only hope.
Four is halfway between three and five. Split the difference.
Why not have five and three? The area suits because there are crossroads every half mile, or the river, or canal. There would be no trouble. Divide it five and three. The Minister wants four because he thinks it is going to suit the Fianna Fáil Party.
If Deputy Belton had suggested earlier, as he suggested today, giving part of his constituency to Deputies Burke and Foley I would have considered that favourably.
At no stage did I say anything about giving this. If the Minister thinks I am worrying about my constituents thinking I want to get them out, this just will not wash in the city of Dublin. This just does not wash. The Minister is saying something that is untrue if he says I said that.
Deputy Clinton said it for you. You got Deputy Clinton to say it for you. I forgot that. It was Deputy Clinton speaking on behalf of Deputy Belton.
This is the same four-seater again.
What about Dublin South-East? It is a three-seater.
You know that you will not get the second seat there.
We have a majority now and we will have it after the next general election.
I move amendment No. 18:
In pages 9 and 10, in the second column of the entry relating to Dublin South-Central, to delete "Cowper Road" and to substitute "Cowper Drive".
Cowper Road was inadvertently included in the description of the boundary of the proposed Dublin South-Central constituency instead of Cowper Drive. This amendment proposes to make the necessary correction.
The Bill was not rushed through at all.
Somebody said I was too slow bringing it in.
I move amendment No. 19:
In page 10, in the second column of the entry relating to North-East Galway, to delete "Clare-Galway" and to substitute "Clare-South Galway".
On the constituency as amended, anybody who looks at the map in relation to this and sees the way in which the two parts are taken in from Roscommon cannot fail to appreciate and understand that that must have been done for a quite deliberate, sinister purpose. Part of the sinister purpose here is to ensure that Roscommon would be down so much in relation to population that the necessity would arise to bring in the portion of Athlone that has been brought in for the sole purpose of serving the Minister for Education.
In the whole of this Bill there is no more glaring gerrymandering ramp than the manner in which a substantial part of the town of Athlone has been deliberately transposed into Roscommon simply and solely for Deputy Brian Lenihan, Minister for Education. On the calculations, the Minister could not have brought that bit in in Athlone unless he had taken these portions off Roscommon. When the Minister went to take them off Roscommon they were not even taken off in a cohesive part. They were taken off in two separate splits. This has been done. These people in Roscommon have been thrown out of their own county simply for the reason I have given and for no other reason. I am sure the parts in question will be very welcome to North-East Galway but that is not the point we are discussing. The point we are discussing and considering is the reason for it. The reason for it is simply and solely to devise an extra chunk of support for the Minister for Education in that Athlone corner. The Minister for Education will find when an election comes along he is not going to have his own way, as he thinks.
The parts of Roscommon added to this constituency are obviously the only parts that could reasonably be taken. When this necessity arises to transfer population from one county to another one must take areas contiguous to the county into which they are being transferred. This transfer has obviously been kept to the minimum since the population per Deputy in the constituency of North-East Galway will be very near the minimum that is allowed.
Is there in West Galway any change from the existing West Galway constituency?
No, I think there may be——
I think it is the same.
There is a very slight change of about 670 people.
It must be in the second paragraph.
I think it is Liscannon, but it is a very slight change anyhow.
I move amendment No. 20:
In page 11, in the second column of the entry relating to North Kerry, after "Deelis," to insert "Kilquane," and to delete "Cordal,".
The purpose of this amendment is to transfer the district electoral division of Cordal, in the former rural district of Tralee, from the proposed constituency of North Kerry to South Kerry in exchange for the district electoral division of Kilquane, in the former rural district of Dingle. It has been represented to me that this change will result in a more satisfactory division. It straightens out the line of division between the proposed North Kerry and South Kerry.
What are the differences?
It will increase the population of North Kerry from 57,207, which is an average per Deputy of 19,069, to 57,389, which is an average per Deputy of 19,130. It will reduce the population of South Kerry from 57,602 which is an average per Deputy of 19,201 to 57,420 which is an average per Deputy of 19,140. The average per Deputy will be closer in the two constituencies than it was in the original position.
It means a difference in population of 182. Is that not right?
Yes.
I have a series of amendments down and I thought I said that amendment No. 25 should be put down first when I was sending the amendments in but I may be wrong. I do not think it matters very much but it would be more logical to take No. 25 first.
Nos. 23 and 24 are alternatives.
That is right.
Nos. 23, 24 and 25.
Nos. 23 and 24 are related but No. 25 is entirely different. I do not mind which we take first.
I think it would be better if we took them in order.
The basis of amendment No. 22 is to change only a very few townlands because these townlands have been accustomed over the years to voting in the Kilcock polling booths and it seems desirable that, in so far as one possibly can, one should stick to this. The Minister knows that I can be political if I want to be, and so can he, but this is purely an administrative matter. It seems desirable not to change people's habits in regard to polling booths which they have attended. The townlands concerned have a population of 142 and for as long as I can remember they have always gone to Kilcock to vote. It is most undesirable to have in the same place booths for two constituencies and if this change is not made the result will be that the people in these four townlands will have to change their habits and go to Newtown to vote.
Section 7 provides for making suitable arrangements for electors in polling districts that are split. I would imagine that there would be a number of instances in other parts of the country where this happens also and that a case could be made for similar amendments in other areas. However, I can see the undesirability of this where traditional voting arrangements have been in existence for some time. The only point I would like to make is that if these amendments are accepted it will increase the population of Kildare constituency and reduce the population of Meath constituency. It is taking a positive step to put the population per Member in these two constituencies more out of line than the original proposals as they are aimed at getting the population per Member, as near as practicable, the same. It is a fact that the proposals in the Bill go nearer in that direction than will be the position after this amendment, after the acceptance of amendments No. 22, 23 and 25, which is one of the possible alternatives, and will increase the population of Kildare to 61,994 and reduce Meath to 59,651.
But they will both be still far nearer the average than many other constituencies.
They will, but as between the two, and this is the only point I am making, the result of accepting these amendments will be to increase the disparity in population per Member between the two constituencies compared with what it is in the Bill at present. However, if Deputy Sweetman thinks that is all right I have no objection.
I think it is desirable so that, as far as possible, people can continue to go to the same polling booth.
Then I would suggest Nos. 22, 24, 25 rather than 22, 23 and 25.
I will settle for that.
The question is that the entry relating to the constituency of Kildare stand part of the Schedule?
The entry as amended.
The amendments deal with Meath. It is not amended.
But it will be amended. I am intrigued by the manner in which the constituency of Kildare, leaving out the small borderline variations, was prepared. I am surprised that I do not find my colleague, Deputy Crinion, here today to discuss this section in the Schedule. Deputy Crinion of course does not live in County Kildare; he lives in County Meath and the part of County Meath in which he resides is now being transferred back into the county of Meath and a large part of the county of Kildare, including Carbury, which I may say was one of the areas responsible more than any other in County Kildare for sending me into this House, has now been transferred from the county of Kildare into the county of Meath. Its eight polling districts which are contiguous to where Deputy Crinion resides have been transferred and I have a very strong suspicion that when the Minister was drawing up Kildare in this way he believed that Deputy Crinion was going to move over into the county of Meath. In fact rumour has it that Deputy Crinion also believed that but that the Minister for Defence would not have him and threw him out of the Meath constituency and this carving that was done out of the kindness of his heart by the Minister for Local Government to assist Deputy Crinion as he thought is now, in fact, boomeranging against Deputy Crinion and Deputy Crinion is no longer moving over into the Meath constituency. Rumour has it that the Minister for Defence indicated that he would not have him under any circumstances.
You cannot blame him for that.
No, I am not offering any comment on that. The comment I am making is that the people of Carbury are now going to have to suffer under this Bill by being taken away from the rest of Kildare because the Minister for Local Government wanted to assist Deputy Crinion by giving him eight polling districts next door to him when the Minister believed that the Deputy was moving over into the plains of Meath. However, that apparently is not to be.
I was also intrigued to see that the district electoral division of Cloncurry and the polling district of Newtown in that district electoral division are likewise being transferred. Of course, that polling district contains one of Deputy Crinion's strongest backers in the whole of Kildare-Newtown polling district—about which I think the Minister for Local Government knows a little because he visited it one day during the by-election with the Minister for Education if my memory serves me correctly. The whole of that North-West corner of Kildare from Kilpatrick to Carbury, to Clogherin-koe, to Broadford and Cadamstown, is now to be cut off from its natural home which is of course the rest of County Kildare. The part that is going will be my loss personally in Kildare but it certainly will be Meath's gain and it is a little humorous to say the least of it that this having been done for the benefit of the Fianna Fáil Deputy in the constituency he now has been forced to spurn the gift that was given to him by the Minister for Local Government.
As Deputy Sweetman knows of course this had nothing whatever to do with the proposed transfer of these areas to County Meath. It arises from a completely different reason altogether. It arises from the fact that the population of Kildare is 66,404, the population of Louth is 69,519, the population of Meath is 67,323, the population of Cavan is 54,022 and the population of Monaghan is 45,732. It arises from the fact that the county of Kildare cannot of itself constitute a three-seat or a four-seat constituency, that the only way in which these areas could be left in Kildare is by joining the whole county with the county of Carlow as some people have suggested or else making some other two-county arrangement such as that and that the decision was to have in this area where there is a total population of 303,000 five constituencies, one based on each of these five counties. This involved a transfer from Kildare to the part of County Meath remaining after Monaghan, Cavan and Louth had been dealt with. When a transfer such as this is being made it is natural that it is the areas that are contiguous to the County Meath that would be dealt with and as Deputy Sweetman has pointed out Deputy Crinion lives in County Meath and these areas are contiguous to the area in which Deputy Crinion lives, therefore obviously also contiguous to the county of Meath and are the natural areas to be transferred when such a transfer is made inevitable because of the constitutional position.
I must say I am amused by the Minister. It is such an extraordinary coincidence but what he is saying of the district electoral divisions that are being transferred does not happen to be entirely true. Carrick, Kilrainy, Cadamstown and Dunfierth are contiguous to County Meath but then he has gone on and stuck a dagger right down in the heart of Kildare with Carbury, Windmill Cross, Kilpatrick and Donadea. I am quite prepared to accept that Lullymore was a genuine mistake because I do not think it was realised when looking at the map that the canal was there between the two. I make no case for Lullymore more than that. It was a genuine mistake. Because of the canal it had to be brought back because otherwise one would have had to travel into the polling district of Kilmeague North in order to go anywhere. It would not be worthwhile putting a booth in Lullymore for 52 voters. However if the contiguity argument was to be made what was being moved would have been entirely different. These areas go right down into the centre of Kildare so a wedge was deliberately inserted there for the purpose of ensuring that Deputy Crinion standing in the Meath constituency would have a nice bloc of home votes all round. It did not work that way, whether it was because of the intricacies and the power grabs within the Fianna Fáil Party or not. The only point I want to make is that the people in those areas can blame Deputy Crinion and no one else for being transferred out of their home county.
Of course if, as Deputy Sweetman says, not all these district electoral divisions are contiguous to County Meath and if as he says Deputy Crinion lives in County Meath then his own opening statement that these areas were transferred because they were contiguous to where Deputy Crinion lives cannot be true either. It is a fact that they are all contiguous to one another.
If the Minister is arguing like that he could go right from east to west.
Let Deputy Sweetman suggest which areas we should leave out and which areas we should substitute for them.
When we go over there on the Government benches after the next general election we shall bring in a redistribution and we shall show Fianna Fáil, then.
Would we be able to go back to Kildare, please, as Deputy Crinion has just arrived in the House? I should like to give him the opportunity of defending himself.
I heard all that Deputy Sweetman said.
We have no worries about East Limerick. We shall handle that situation, do not worry.
It is a little bit unfortunate that Deputy Jones, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, is in the Chair just now when his constituency is being discussed. Do I understand that the Chair changes at 2 o'clock?
At 2.30 p.m.
If the Chair changed at 2 o'clock I should keep going until then in order to allow the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to speak on his own constituency, if he so desired. Will not the effect of this method of joining East and West Limerick be that one goes now from Abbeyfeale at the Kerry end right across to Galbally up at the Cork end——
Kilbehenny.
That would be even further than Galbally on the map though I am not quite sure whether Kilbehenny or Galbally would be further from Abbeyfeale. Here we have a complete contradiction of the case the Minister was making earlier that he wanted to provide in his constituencies that there would be the shortest distance between the two extreme ends of a constituency. By doing it in this way, it does seem on the map that there is a much longer distance than there would be by any other methods of division within the county of Limerick. I should like to hear exactly why the Minister decided to make the journey longer, so to speak, as the Chair is precluded from offering his observations on his own constituency just now.
I think the offer made by Deputy Sweetman to delay the proceedings long enough to allow the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to take part in the debate is an indication of the lack of success of the Fine Gael effort to compel Fine Gael Deputies to come in here to take part in the debate.
The Minister should look at the benches behind him.
We do not desire to delay. It is Fine Gael who desire to delay and who even had to get both the Leader——
On a point of order. As the Minister has no supporters, perhaps we might have a quorum?
That is another way of delaying the proceedings.
Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,
I was going on to point out, when I was unnecessarily interrupted, that the adjustment between East and West Limerick constituencies is made purely and simply because of the fact that the Census of Population carried out in 1966 disclosed that the population of West Limerick is now 54,335 and that this figure divided by three, which is the number of Deputies for the area, would not be in accordance with the constitutional provision. On the other hand, the population of East Limerick is 83,022 and these two figures added together give 137,357 which is sufficient for seven seats, just barely, and therefore it is not necessary to go outside the boundaries of County Limerick in order to adjust the situation. However, this slight disruption of the boundary between the two Limerick constituencies is necessary in order to comply with the Constitution. I think anybody would agree that the place at which the adjustment is made is the most logical place to make such an adjustment.
It means the longest distance.
The longest distance from where to where?
From one end to the other end.
The East Limerick constituency has always been based on Limerick city.
Yes, agreed, but you could still do it the other way.
I think it is logical to keep it that way. You could do all these things in practically an infinite number of ways. This is the obvious way to do it.
This is the way that gives the longest travelling.
As a result of the by-election surely the Minister should have taken cognisance of the fact that in every polling booth in the City of Limerick the emigration——
How did we win it so?
As a result of the by-election it is quite obvious to us that no matter what you did in Limerick we would retain our four seats out of seven and the only possible rearrangement that could be made would be to increase our representation and it would be gerrymandering to approach it in that way.
I move amendment No. 21:
In page 11, in the second column of the entry relating to Longford-Westmeath, to delete "Roscommon" and to substitute "Roscommon-Leitrim".
This amendment has already been discussed with amendments Nos. 12 and 1.
(South Tipperary): In Longford-Westmeath area there is a transfer of Athlone urban to Roscommon. Athlone urban has been traditionally associated with Longford-Westmeath. I gave the Minister figures yesterday to show that this transfer of Athlone urban to the north-west counties, taking them as a group, was unnecessary and that as we agreed to accept some four-seater constituencies, three four-seat constituencies on the western seaboard, it would be unnecessary to move the population of Athlone urban into the western counties.
For example, I mentioned that Roscommon itself could stand as a single constituency by just bringing in Taghboy and Ahascragh. These are two small areas, Taghboy with 290 votes and Ahascragh with 663 votes. That small number of 953 people taken from Galway would allow Roscommon a single three-seat constituency which is a far better arrangement than what the Minister suggests.
Similarly, Galway, even after giving some to Clare, could remain and have sufficient population to form West Galway as a three-seater and East Galway as a four-seater. Similarly also, you could have Donegal as two three-seaters and Sligo-Leitrim as a four-seater, and there would be a transfer of only a little over 5,000 of population out of Leitrim. The Minister has argued here that we gave him no proper suggestions and that, in effect, we did not know what we were talking about. I have given details, so far as one can in a debate, of all the transfers that may be made and the populations and the amount of transferred population outside administrative areas in the scheme which I put to him was less than one-sixth of the transferred population under his global scheme of ten three-seaters. The alternative I suggested of three four-seaters and six three-seaters, leaving reasonable constituencies of reasonable size and manageability and paying respect to administrative areas, would leave something like 9,000 people transferred.
In fact it is possible, as regards the entire country, to merge constituencies and give reasonable results with a transfer of population outside of administrative areas of something a little over 19,000—I have totted the figures since—as against his figure of 101,000. I admit it would pare things rather fine but it is possible to elect 30 Deputies from the area I mentioned, the western seaboard, the north western counties, without impinging at all on Athlone urban. I realise that this quite unnecessary transfer is being done for political purposes and in the interests of a specific Minister but it is not necessary under the Constitution.
I should like to draw the Deputy's attention at this stage to the fact that we seem to be moving from Longford-Westmeath to a general discussion again on the country at large as distinct from the constituency which is under review at the moment.
(South Tipperary): Yes, but this movement of urban population from Longford-Westmeath, this moving of the Athlone urban population, is being done to get the necessary population for all that group area. Under the method which the Minister has used he has found it necessary, and will be able to argue statistically that it is necessary, to move that population into the western seaboard, if you call it that, in order to provide the ten three-seat constituencies. If he were prepared to accept an arrangement of six three-seaters instead of ten, and three four-seaters, which would give the same representation to all these counties west of Athlone, it could be done without moving the urban population of Athlone into that area. I can give him the areas and the figures whereby he can still have three seats in West Galway, four seats in East Galway, still retain four seats in Clare, four seats in Longford-Westmeath and have his two three-seaters in Donegal. Mayo does not come into it because it is an internal rearrangement that is being made there. This is statistically quite possible under the Constitution, but apparently the Minister does not want to hear of it that way and wants to proceed to establish ten three-seat constituencies. To do that, you have to drag in Athlone urban which, as I have shown, is quite unnecessary. I can give the figures again, if he wants them, showing how all these arrangements can be made within the Constitution.
I think Deputy Hogan knows that we are not proposing to transfer Athlone urban but we are transferring Athlone west urban, a completely different thing.
(South Tipperary): That is what I mean.
It is situated west of the Shannon and in fact Athlone west urban is the county town for a large part of South Roscommon. The Athlone No. 2 rural district is, in fact, in the administrative county of Roscommon and it is to this part of Athlone that is west of the Shannon that all the people of that area of Clonowen, Drumlash and Taghmaconnell and Curraghboy and so on come to do their business. It is looked upon, and always has been looked upon, as the county town for that part of south Roscommon. In fact, Athlone west urban is known locally as Irishtown, that part of Athlone west of the Shannon.
We are still adhering to the Shannon boundary in that particular area. Deputy Hogan says he gave me figures but he gives incomplete figures. We must consider this in the context of the whole western area and in the context of the average of population per Deputy. Deputy Hogan keeps putting forward this alternative of the transfer of Taghboy and Ahascragh from Galway to Roscommon but, of course, that transfer is from Galway.
The Athlone west urban area is traditionally associated with that part of South Roscommon which is roughly divided by the Athlone No. 2 rural district, and there is nothing anomalous in it. It is a rationalisation rather than anything else.
It is purely coincidental that it is the area of the Minister for Education.
Fine Gael would consider they have reasonably strong support in Athlone.
We will show you, later on.
It cannot suit everybody. It is only one man one vote.
It is to provide that Deputy Lenihan will put out poor Deputy Gibbons.
We will have two seats.
(South Tipperary): The Minister said I gave incomplete figures. The only one I did not give completely is in respect of County Galway. The population there, after transfers to Roscommon and to Clare, is 104,582. In Clifden rural the population is 9,064, in Galway rural, 18,334, in Oughterard, 10,610 and in Galway Borough, 24,597, making 62,605. This leaves 80,977 to East Galway, after transfers to Roscommon and Clare, and gives a three-seater in the west and a four-seater in the east. I do not know what other figures I could have given.
The Deputy could have started in Donegal and stopped in Clare.
(South Tipperary): Does the Minister want me to start on a bicycle ride from Donegal down along the west coast?
I do not care. It is one other way to delay the passage of the Bill.
(South Tipperary): I am an obliging chap and if the Minister wishes I will start at Donegal and will do the type of bicycle ride for which he has earned such a tremendout reputation, having been able to speak for, I think, six hours on one occasion. I could not compete with that but if he wishes I will try. I have given the figures for Donegal. I have given the areas but I have not given the populations which are in the red book in front of the Minister.
At the moment we are dealing with amendment No. 21. It has been discussed already and we are rediscussing it.
(South Tipperary): The Minister has advised me to walk to Donegal and to start on a bicycle ride right down the Galway coast, though I have given him the figures already. The situation is that the Minister has transferred too many people into Galway and Donegal. If he had done a little more cheeseparing in relation to Galway and Donegal he need not have drafted Athlone west urban into Roscommon. However, he has treated the spread of population so generously, having liquidated Leitrim completely and having treated Roscommon so harshly, he has left himself without population and he had to draw on Athlone in order to redraft Roscommon. It suited him to do this also for political reasons. Had he desired to confine himself to the counties concerned, he would have found sufficient population, though it would have been cheeseparing, without using Athlone west urban. He could have left most of the counties concerned intact. He has wiped Leitrim completely off the map and has cut up Roscommon.
This is another example of dividing east and west contrary to all traditional methods. For as long as the records stand, any division in Mayo has always been on the basis of north and south.
Not at all. East Mayo was with Sligo for ages.
That is a revelation to me who have lived there during the past 40 years. East Mayo was not in Sligo since the dawn of time.
Look up your history.
The point of dividing it east and west now is to prevent the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Health being in the same constituency. Again, as in many other constituencies, the traditional pattern is being changed simply and solely to suit Fianna Fáil. There is no other reason. We all know it and it is perfectly patent on its face. The more one examines this Bill the more one sees that it was drawn up by the Minister purely for personalities in his own Party and not in pursuance of the national interest.
In consideration of certain circumstances to which I do not at present propose to refer, I have not participated actively in this debate regarding the realignment of constituencies, particularly that which I have the honour to represent, but when the issue of Mayo arises, and when Deputy Gilbride, who is an experienced Deputy, intervenes to say that East Mayo was for a considerable time incorporated in Sligo, I think the voice of protest must be raised. I never remember any time——
The Deputy's memory must be getting very bad.
I suppose the time has come when my memory might be called into question. I do not think, however faulty it may have become with the passage of time, that it fails me now. I have lived personally and vicariously in the constituency of Mayo for almost 100 years now and it has never been part of Sligo as far as I know. My father represented it from 1883 to 1918. Mr. de Valera represented it after that, having defeated my father in 1918, and East Mayo was a constituent part of Mayo down the years.
I intervene at this stage of the Bill in relation to Mayo and the handling of the county for reasons which I think Deputy Sweetman has rightly pointed out. This is a device employed by the Minister for Local Government to separate Deputy Flanagan, the Minister for Health, from Deputy Moran, the Minister for Justice. One can fully sympathise with the Minister for Local Government in his desire to separate these two Deputies because their contiguity in the past has given rise to more than one dramatic incident in the electoral history of this country. As a Mayo man, I want to direct the attention of the House to the fact that, apart from the immediate political gerrymandering that is being carried on in various areas in the country, I think those of us who are concerned with public decency ought in respect of the areas where they are ordinarily resident —Mayo is that for me—to register a protest against the form of this Bill and its Schedule. I am prepared to stake my reputation that there is in the Department of Local Government at this moment a draft Bill for the redistribution made necessary by the previous census which would have breached virtually no county boundaries and that the Minister for Local Government has rejected that draft preferring to bring in this crazy patchwork for the purpose of wreaking vengeance on the people because they turned down the Government proposals in the referendum.
Nonsense.
That was what Deputy Martin Corry said anyway.
That is the fact. There is a healthy local patriotism amongst our people. They like to be associated with the counties to which they have traditionally belonged. I understand that in this proposed redistribution Ballaghaderreen is being moved back to Roscommon. Ballaghaderreen constitutes part of County Mayo and has done so from time immemorial. The first time it was ever transferred to Roscommon was for the purposes of parliamentary elections subsequent to 1918. It is an interesting thing to note that, when the Local Government Act of 1898 was passed by the British House of Commons for the purposes of local administration, the area of Ballaghaderreen was moved to Roscommon.
The Deputy's memory is coming back.
The relevancy of that observation is not, to me, immediately apparent.
Where did Dr. Farren represent in his time? Was it not Sligo and East Mayo?
Not that I am aware of. Neither Dr. Farren, whom I never heard of before, nor any other doctor represented Sligo or East Sligo. It is interesting to remember that, for the purposes of local government, the British House of Commons transferred part of what had been the administrative county of Roscommon for parliamentary purposes; they recognised the traditional loyalties of people to their own county and they left Ballaghaderreen in the constituency of East Mayo. It was for that reason that the famous anti-conscription meeting was addressed by my father and the father of Deputy Vivion de Valera in Ballaghaderreen 51 years ago, because it was part of the constituency of East Mayo, which was then the constituency of the Leader of the Irish Party in the person of my late father. I think the present procedure shows a vindictive desire to affront our people because they asserted their right in the referendum to reject the radical proposal the Government put forward anent the crooked vote and the single seat condu stituency. I think that is all wrong. I think it is indicative of the vicious——
Sir, I take it I will be permitted to reply on these lines.
Am I entitled to speak on the proposed division of Mayo?
On the division of Mayo, but any reference to the referendum is not in order.
I am, surely, entitled to suggest that the reason Mayo is so divided, and parts of what are traditionally Mayo are now being transferred out of it, is that this is a vindictive Bill. Am I not entitled to call in evidence the fact that 70 years ago, in 1898, the British Government did not do this? They recognised that in this country, as in Great Britain, people have traditional county loyalties.
The Deputy will appreciate that we are dealing with the Schedule to the Bill and discussion is confined to the entries that appear in the Schedule or to associated areas which may be treated as a group.
The Leas-Cheann Comhairle is aware that, under this Schedule, it is proposed to take part of the traditional constituency of East Mayo and transfer it to Roscommon.
That may be discussed, but wider references to the referendum are not in order.
I shall not trespass on your patience, but surely I am entitled to state the reason for this? I compare the proposal of the Government of the Republic with the conduct of the Imperial Parliament in Westminster. It appears to me our Government is actuated by a vindictive desire to hurt the people because the people would not accept their electoral proposals in the referendum.
Nonsense.
The Deputy may say it is nonsense, but I ask the Deputy to reflect and to ask himself why it is that this Government of the Republic take a different line in regard to this matter from that taken by the Imperial Parliament in Westminster 70 years ago. Why did the Imperial Parliament 70 years ago, at a time when it would have been convenient to put Ballaghaderreen into Roscommon for county council purposes, not do so? Why did they say to themselves that these people look upon themselves as Mayo people and why did they decide they should be left in Mayo for parliamentary representation? I think it was because they recognised traditional loyalties. The Bill before us at the moment, which is designed at butchering the county, is not drafted for the purpose of securing satisfactory parliamentary representation. It is drafted as a kick in the teeth because the people refused to respond to the crack of the Fianna Fáil whip and the Fianna Fáil majority in this House. I think that is wrong. I deplore it. The Government have a majority in Dáil Éireann and they will be able to force this Bill through. Mark you, there is an uneasy tittering amongst Fianna Fáil Deputies; I do not mind Deputy Booth because he lives down in Monkstown, or somewhere, and he does not know what is happening in the country, and never will, but the Deputy from West Galway —I do not see any smile on his face— and the Deputy from Sligo——
The Deputy is not suggesting he will be defeated.
In the coming general election?
Yes.
As sure as an eye in a goat, and the Deputy knows it.
The Deputy is making sure he will not be defeated anyway.
He has got cold feet.
For pity's sake, when some of you have served the country as well as Deputy Dillon has done——
They do not worry me. I am making the case that they are actuated by vindictive viciousness. They know it is true. I must concede this. Though they are poisoned by the vileness of their presence on those benches, individually I have found most of them extremely civil to me since they learned that it was not my intention to return to this House after the next general election. So let us not make the case that they want to affront me.
They are on the run.
That has not been my experience and I have no such ground for complaint.